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 who wrote the letter believes that the decrease in business in Central Plaza has been due to the increase in number of skateboarders at the plaza, and that prohibiting skateboarding at the plaza would result in the business at the plaza improving to its original level. The argument is flawed because it makes some assumptions, the basis of which have not been shown to be true.
The foremost factor that needs to be taken into account is whether the business at the stores has plummeted directly due to the increase in skateboarders. Intuitively, the opposite should be true, because when more people frequent the plaza, more people are likely to shop at the stores. The store owner needs to analyze why this has not been happening. Is there any reason that the large number of skateboarders have not been shopping at the store? Perhaps the stores have not been catering to the needs of their customers well, or maybe they are overpriced. The writer does not mention whether the number of stores has remained the same for the past two years. Maybe the number of shoppers at the stores has reduced simply because the number of stores has reduced, which could signify some issue that has not been analyzed by the writer. Thus, it cannot be said that the business in Central Plaza would return to its peak, just based on whether the skateboarders are allowed at the plaza or not.
In addition, the writer has not provided any evidence that the increased litter and vandalism at the plaza is due to the increased number of skateboarders. Perhaps the increased litter has been caused due to the lack of trash cans. Litter and vandalism could have also been caused due to the lack of security staff at the plaza, who should be responsible for preventing it from happening. There is just not enough information on whether these issues are directly correlated with the increased number of skateboarders, and as a result, it cannot be used as an argument in favour of banning skateboarding to improve business.
Furthermore, the writer does not consider the negative effects to business that prohibition of skateboarders would cause. Skateboard rentals, shoe rentals, skateboarding entry fees, and snack stalls are among few of the possible revenue streams that would be severely hampered as a result of banning skateboarding at the plaza, due to the dramatically high numbers of skateboarders at the plaza. Thus, the writer needs to consider whether the business in Central Plaza would really flourish despite the lost revenue generated by skateboarding, if skatebording were to be prohibited at the plaza.
In conclusion, the writer is concerned about the plummet in business at Central Plaza, supposedly caused by the alarmingly high number of skateboarders, but neither does he/she consider any other factors that may be causing this issue, nor does he/she consider the possible repercussions towards the business at the plaza that banning skateboarding would cause. Overall, his/her argument does not hold because it is too simplistic and possibly naive.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 512 350
No. of Characters: 2508 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.757 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.898 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.723 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.947 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.006 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.474 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.388 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.577 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.166 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ich have not been shown to be true. The foremost factor that needs to be taken ...
^^^
Line 9, column 178, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'she' must be used with a third-person verb: 'considers'.
Suggestion: considers
... skateboarders, but neither does he/she consider any other factors that may be causing t...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 253, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'she' must be used with a third-person verb: 'considers'.
Suggestion: considers
... be causing this issue, nor does he/she consider the possible repercussions towards the ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, if, may, really, so, thus, well, in addition, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2571.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 509.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0510805501 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74984508646 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79762863951 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.408644400786 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 797.4 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.0391849066 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.315789474 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.7894736842 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.05263157895 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.276349921515 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0997830503376 0.0743258471296 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0689446716533 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181631216626 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0700293358824 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.