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 Central Plaza store owner, in a letter to the editor, claims that, were the skateboarding prohibited in and around the plaza, the business there would return to its previously high levels. The owner draws this conclusion based on the evidence that he provides upon observations in the plaza. He makes certain correlations, which upon a cursory glance look quite cogent,but leave much to be answered in order to make the argument unassailable and more tenable. Apparently, the owner has mistaken correlation for causation in most cases and has jumped to conclusions presumptuously which leave much leeway for suspicions.
To begin, the Central Plaza owner states that the population of shoppers has been thinning out for the past couple of years, and he tries to relate it to the increase in the number of skateboarders. But is there another Plaza or service center that has opened up in the locality and provides a better facility to shoppers? Has a skate park been opened around the proximity of the premises of the Plaza? Without concrete answers to these questions, the line of logic connecting increasing skateboarders to decreasing shoppers is merely a hypothesis that can easily be refuted based on the lack of transparency in clearing out these questions.
Secondly, the argument suggests that the owner is trying to tacitly part blame on the skateboarders for the litter and vandalism that has accrued in the past years. There is no need to rush to conclusions without properly inquiring these accusations. Perhaps, the security forces have turned lenient and the criminals are running loose. Is the policy in security and protection the same as it used to be two year ago? Are there criminal activities that might have recently been established around the plaza over the years? The owner misjudges the situations and without any solid proof goes on what seems like a personal vendetta to get the skateboarders.
Further, the Plaza owner presents a testimonial of 'many' shop owners inside the Plaza to suggest that they have a consensus about the opinion that an increase in the number of skaters has decreased the influx of shoppers. But how many shop owners has the Plaza owner interviewed? Was there are meeting about it, and if there was, are the discussions documented? Could the plaza owner have wrongfully drawn up slander at the skaters in order to rule out one of the many factors that could be responsible for the feeble numbers of the shoppers? In the lack of answers to these questions, the statement remains dubious and cannot be taken for its words faithfully.
So, any reader can understand the exigency of the owner to write the letter to the editor. His business is going downhill. But with an argument so precarious, based on evidences which can be questioned upon with much weight, the owner really needs to base his conclusions on a more extensive research on his losses and leave no room for questions if he decides he needs to write another letter again. Therefore, the argument is currently precarious, standing on assailable and shaky grounds with much to answer for in order to be more cogent and germane.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 529 350
No. of Characters: 2566 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.796 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.851 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.384 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.391 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.496 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 374, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , but
... upon a cursory glance look quite cogent,but leave much to be answered in order to m...
^^^^
Line 1, column 477, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...assailable and more tenable. Apparently, the owner has mistaken correlation for c...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
apparently, but, if, look, really, second, secondly, so, therefore, in most cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2628.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 528.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 4.97727272727 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79356345386 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76897566614 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 256.0 204.123752495 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.484848484848 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 826.2 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.9860066382 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.260869565 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9565217391 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.52173913043 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.272784273466 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0788161744609 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0849729778467 0.0701772020484 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153098777835 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0747970170443 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.9 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.79 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 136.0 98.500998004 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.