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.
In a letter to the editor, a Central Plaza store owner recommends that the city should prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. The owner sites the increase in litter and vandalism to the decrease in the number of shoppers in the plaza and tacitly links vandalism to the increased activity of the skateboarders in the area. However, in order to evaluate the merit of the recommendation, there are a few pivotal questions that should be answered.
Firstly, is the decrease in consumers universal for all the stores in the plaze? It might as well be the case that the numbers are dwindling only for a few stores in the plaza and the store owner presents a biased opinion of a few other fellow store owners in order to put his point across. To effectively answer this question, an independent survey needs to be conducted across all the stores in the Central Plaza to see if the observation presented by the writer is indeed true. If in the survey, it turns out that many of the stores are doing just fine, then the observation on which the argument is being made would be proved incorrect, and the recommendation will lose its merit. On the other hand, if indeed the numbers have been on a decline universally, then we can proceed further to identify the root cause of the problem.
Second, are the skateboarders actually responsible for vandalism and litter? While it might be the case that both, the skateboarding and vandalism have been on the rise together, there is no evidence presented to prove if the former is actually responsible for the latter. The writer might be making a very common mistake of linking corelation and causation. On-field observation of a few weeks should be enough to provide credibility to the claim, if it is true. However, if the observations fail to link the two, then the writer's argument will weaken severely.
Finally, does vandalism and/or the skateboarding activity actually affect the consumers? There might be other reasons behind the residents choosing not to visit the stores more often. For instance, maybe there's another plaza that has opened in the vicinity, and the people of the area prefer to visit that one instead. Or maybe the stores in the plaza increased their prices because of which the people have stopped buying goods from these stores. Any of these situations will completely invalidate the shop owner's claim that it is the skateboarders who have been detrimental to the consumer activity in the plaza.
The above questions show that the writer's argument is full of assumptions, which if proven unwarranted will nullify the claims as well as the recommendation. Even if the observations stated are unbiased and correct, the arguments of the writer are not cogent enough and the derivation from the claims to the result is full of fallacies. Therefore, before taking any actions to solve the problem, more evidence is required along with a more thorough analysis of the situation. The writer's claim, as it stands, can not be taking for its face value.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 513 350
No. of Characters: 2449 1500
No. of Different Words: 231 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.759 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.774 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.318 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.636 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.513 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 525, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
...rvations fail to link the two, then the writers argument will weaken severely. Fin...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 205, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
... stores more often. For instance, maybe theres another plaza that has opened in the vi...
^^^^^^
Line 17, column 35, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
... The above questions show that the writers argument is full of assumptions, which ...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 82, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
... argument is full of assumptions, which if proven unwarranted will nullify the cla...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, well, while, for instance, as well as, it is true, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2516.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 512.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9140625 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75682846001 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75743623496 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453125 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 794.7 705.55239521 113% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.4243251064 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.363636364 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2727272727 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.81818181818 5.70786347227 119% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.239338091004 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0699222975289 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0918341240853 0.0701772020484 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145909074199 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.117969726057 0.0628817314937 188% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.