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’s states that the decrease in number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been accompanied by a sharp increase in skateboarding popularity. The owners believe the skateboarders caused the decline in the number of shoppers. So, if skateboarding is banned, a prediction of previous levels of business will return to the shopping center. At first glance, the idea is plausible, but upon further observation the argument is flawed and not cogent.
To begin, the owner states the skateboarders have taken steps to damage the state of the area by vandalizing and littering the place. An important accusation that is unfounded as no evidence is provided. One would easily counteract this point by questioning the owners: Are they taking out their frustrations on the skateboarders? Do they have bad relations with them? Have they seen them mistreat the shopping center? If the owners do not have the evidence to back up this statement, then they shouldn’t make such a presumptuous accusation.
Furthermore, no information is provided about the opinion of the shoppers. Perhaps in their day to day interactions with them, they’ve heard of complaints involving the skateboarders, but it’s not mentioned in the owner’s letter. One would think that in order to make a desired goal more effective, they would need to provide customer reviews regarding this point. The owner could improve his argument by making a survey, or asking random shoppers what they think about the shopping center. What could be done to improve their experience? Once this data is accumulated, then they may have a stronger hand to back their premise.
Lastly, the owners have to think about the context of this issue. Are there any external factors affecting the shopping experience of the customers? They know of the vandalism and the littering, but how long has this been an issue? For that matter, how long have the skateboarders roamed in the plaza? Do they share the same timeline? Most important of all, are there any other shopping centers close to their location whom they have to compete with? There are countless of questions that have to be taken into account to properly establish what is the true underlying issue affecting the owners. So far, there is not enough data to support the owner’s logic.
The letter provided by the owner makes certain assumptions that once inspected, are flawed due to their lack of evidence. They blame the skateboarders for the vandalism, litter, and overall bad quality of the Central Plaza. At the same time, no consideration is given to the idea of obtaining information from the consumers to understand what their complaints may be. Other external factors seem to be largely ignored by the owner. One could believe the owner is looking for an easy solution, that if implemented may not lead to the desired consequence. Sooner or later, they will have to analyze the situation, and based on evidence, make calculated decisions to save their businesses.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 30 15
No. of Words: 493 350
No. of Characters: 2420 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.712 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.909 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.721 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.433 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.679 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.252 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.435 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, lastly, look, may, regarding, so, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2522.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 491.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13645621181 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70728369723 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92043249582 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496945010183 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 778.5 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.1371000497 57.8364921388 62% => OK
Chars per sentence: 84.0666666667 119.503703932 70% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.3666666667 23.324526521 70% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.23333333333 5.70786347227 39% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.125419160447 0.218282227539 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0377333049602 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0642730100268 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0899014693329 0.128457276422 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0708140211896 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => 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: 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.