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 store owner of Central Plaza concludes that if skateboarding is prohibited in Central Plaza they predict that business in central plaza will return to its previously high levels. To support the claim, the owner points out that the shoppers in Central Plaza have steadily been decreasing, the reason being dramatic increase in the popularity of skateboarding over the past two years also there has been a dramatic increase in litter and vandalism, many store owners believe the decrease in customers is due to the skateboard users in the Central plaza. At first glance the reasoning may seem correct however the argument is based on certain unwarranted assumptions and lacks in proper correlation between the skateboard users and the cause of decreased business and customers. The store owner only concentrates on the skateboard users without considering other factors that might have led to the decline. Thus, in order to better evaluate the recommendation and analyse its logical soundness, additional explanation is required to answer questions that are foundational to the line of reasoning.
Firstly, the owner claims that the increase in the popularity of skateboard users has caused the number of shoppers to decline, while no actual numbers have been provided to analyse the ratio. Could there be other reasons that could be considered for the decline in number of shoppers in Central Plaza? It is possible that popularity of a new shopping plaza erected in the neighbouring locality resulted in diverting the shoppers towards the new plaza and decreasing the ones in Central Plaza. It could also be the case that the stores that attracted the majority of shoppers might have been shifted or replaced causing the shoppers to decline or increase in unemployment over past two years have resulted the steady decline. If any of the above factors have caused decline in shoppers then there must be an increase in free circulation space in the plaza which might have attracted the skateboarding.
Secondly, the owner refers to many Central Plaza store owners who believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skate board users in the plaza, without providing any further information about other store owners. Referring to the scale as “many store owners” is a vague generalisation and needs further investigation. Is there any specific number of store owners who believes that, do they belong to any specific category of store outlets? Additionally, and importantly no reason for “many store owners” credulity is provided, like why do they believe the increase in skateboarding has caused their business to decline? There could be many other possible reasons that should be taken into account for their business to decline. If these owners belong to similar category then it could be possible that there has been a decline in the demand of those store items or the items that they sell have become outmoded, moreover the item costs might have increased dramatically in the past two years making those store items out of budget for many low income customers. Without answers to the above questions the store owner’s recommendation remains unsupported.
Finally, it is stated that there has been a dramatic increase in the litter and vandalism in the plaza but no relationship is provided between the increase in the skateboarding and increase in litter and vandalism. Are these skateboarders responsible for the littering and vandalism or there are any other factors causing the same? Without any evidence it cannot be considered true that the skateboarding has caused the littering and destruction, if other reasons such as reduced budget of the plaza to appoint enough workers to clean and maintain the plaza prove to be true then there is a serious flaw in the store owner’s assumption.
Further analysis reveals obvious gaps and unwarranted assumptions that render the argument specious. In order to improve upon the logical shortcomings and bolster the argument, further explanation on “why the increase in popularity of skateboarding has caused the decline in the shoppers or the business of other store owners, what other reasons could have resulted in the decline and how the littering and vandalism can be related to the skate boarders” would be beneficial. If the answers to these questions have nothing to do with the increase in skateboarders then the prohibition will not do any better for the business of Central Plaza, the argument as it stands fails to provide a cohesive theory to support its claim.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- duplicated to argument 1
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 23 15
No. of Words: 740 350
No. of Characters: 3753 1500
No. of Different Words: 261 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.216 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.072 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.738 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 271 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 221 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 144 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.174 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.787 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.522 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.352 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 727, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...years have resulted the steady decline. If any of the above factors have caused de...
^^
Line 3, column 903, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...might have attracted the skateboarding. Secondly, the owner refers to many Centr...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 105.0 55.5748502994 189% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3858.0 2260.96107784 171% => OK
No of words: 740.0 441.139720559 168% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21351351351 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.21564387372 4.56307096286 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87004885388 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 269.0 204.123752495 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.363513513514 0.468620217663 78% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1227.6 705.55239521 174% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 84.1842205331 57.8364921388 146% => OK
Chars per sentence: 167.739130435 119.503703932 140% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.1739130435 23.324526521 138% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.86956521739 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.315177069895 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.111609699318 0.0743258471296 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0965505101212 0.0701772020484 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.205139369882 0.128457276422 160% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0905298464709 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.2 14.3799401198 134% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 30.54 48.3550499002 63% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 17.0 12.197005988 139% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.53 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 147.0 98.500998004 149% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => OK
text_standard: 18.0 11.9071856287 151% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.