The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.
"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author, rightfully, is concerned about the decrease in popularity of Central Plaza and suggesting to prohibit skateboarding in order to increase the Plaza popularity. He is arguing that as the popularity of the Plaza decreased the the popularity of skateboarding have increased. His suggestion is based on unsupported claim and before accepting it we new to evaluate the situation thoroughly.
It’s said that the Central Plaza have witnessed a steady decline of popularity over the past two year as the popularity of skateboarding increased. These are two separate events unlike what the author claims, unless proven that they are directly propotional. So, in order to assess the author’s claim about their relationship, we need to ask several questions. Did new competitors to the Central Plaza open recently? If so, this could be the cause of Central Plaza popularity. Also, does the market based dynamics changed due financial crisis or economic distress? This obviously will reduce consumers ability to purchase.
The author claim that skateboarders are to blame for discouraging customers from visiting the Central Plaza, but did he do any survey to assess this claim? If no customers submitted a complain regarding skateboarders, the author’s claim will be nearly baseless. Hence it is important to know the opinion of the customers.
Moreover, the author attribute this decline for increase of waste and vandalism. Of course, any place which is dirty and dangerous will negatively impact businesses. However, is this increase of vandalisim as a result of skateboarders? This is a strong claim that can be proved if incidents reports shows skateboarders involvement. In the same time, it is important to know what efforts the administration of the Central Plaza have put to maintain and secure the place? The answer of this question will tell us if the Plaza will be a better place if the skateboarders were prohibited.
The author’s proposal is stemming from good intention to increase the popularity of the Central Plaza as it was before. However, to point out that the cause of the popularity problem is skateboarding is unsupported claim. The author need to address the above mentioned questions in order to rationally evaluate his proposal and identify the real root causes of the problem.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 370 350
No. of Characters: 1895 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.386 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.122 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.949 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.507 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 92, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'suggesting prohibiting'.
Suggestion: suggesting prohibiting
...ease in popularity of Central Plaza and suggesting to prohibit skateboarding in order to increase the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 232, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...s the popularity of the Plaza decreased the the popularity of skateboarding have increa...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 232, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...s the popularity of the Plaza decreased the the popularity of skateboarding have increa...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 356, Rule ID: I_NEW[1]
Message: Did you mean 'knew' (past of "to know")?
Suggestion: knew
...ported claim and before accepting it we new to evaluate the situation thoroughly. ...
^^^
Line 4, column 634, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...l reduce consumers ability to purchase. The author claim that skateboarders are ...
^^^^^
Line 6, column 183, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...s this claim? If no customers submitted a complain regarding skateboarders, the author&apo...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 268, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...r's claim will be nearly baseless. Hence it is important to know the opinion of ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...to know the opinion of the customers. Moreover, the author attribute this decl...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, moreover, regarding, so, of course, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1971.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 370.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.32702702703 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38581623665 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12592893425 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.491891891892 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 626.4 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 33.3708500995 57.8364921388 58% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 89.5909090909 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8181818182 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.54545454545 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.288065306368 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0927340679361 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100966193405 0.0701772020484 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179720120767 0.128457276422 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0608389438918 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 46.78 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.34 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.