The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a citizen of Carlton County.
"It has been noted over the past two years that the incidence of vandalism has steadily increased in Carlton County. At the same time, it has been noted that there is a dramatic increase in out-of-state migrants who have moved to Carlton County over the past few years. Many citizens of the county believe that these migrants are responsible for the observed increase in vandalism. We therefore recommend that the county government should take strict measures to reduce the number of out-of-state migrants in order to prevent further destruction of public property and restore civic order in Carlton County."
In a letter to the editor, a citizen claims that migrants moving to Carlton County from out-of-state are responsible for the increase in vandalism over the past two years. The citizen hence suggests that to curb vandalism, migration must be checked. However, the citizen has left out crucial pieces of information regarding this claim and must answer the following three questions in order for the claim to be taken seriously.
The citizen notes that there has been an increase in vandalism over the last two years. How much is this increase though? If it is, for example, an increase from 10 incidents two years ago, to 15 incidents over the last two years, then it is not a significant increase at all. Does the increase in incidents actually warrant attention from the city authorities? Does it call for resources - monetary and otherwise - to be allocated to such a minuscule issue? The citizen must report statistics regarding the number of incidents for at least the last 5 years on the safer side, for her/his concern to be worth the city authorities' attention.
Further, the citizen claims that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of out-of-state migrants coming to Carlton County, and they are the ones committing vandalism. Notice that the increase in migration has been over the past few years - unclear, how many - whereas vandalism has been on the rise only during the last two years. If there were migrants coming in even before the last two years, were they not supposedly committing vandalism then? It seems that migration has been a phenomenon in the County for several years. The citizen must hence report statistics regarding the number of migrants, as well as how many of them have been involved in a vandalism incident, for the claim to hold any water.
Further, the citizen fails to consider any other plausible cause for the increase in crime, and chooses to pinpoint only the migrants. It is possible, for example, that civic unrest has led to protests or riots in the County, or local gangs and clashes between them have erupted more frequently over the last two years. It is quite short-sighted to correlate destruction of public property solely to migration and choose to ignore any other avenue. The citizen must provide information about the profile of citizens engaged in civic disorder and misbehavior in order to conduct a holistic overview of the issue and come to a logical conclusion.
In conclusion, the citizen's letter to the editor is full of gaping holes of information and spurious reasoning that does not give any proper insight into the issue at hand. In order to make the claim sound, the citizen must fill these gaps by providing answers to the questions raised above. Only then can a conclusion be drawn and an effective solution outlined for the problem.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 477 350
No. of Characters: 2284 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.673 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.788 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.551 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.096 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.454 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.121 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 619, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authorities'' or 'authority's'?
Suggestion: authorities'; authority's
...or her/his concern to be worth the city authorities attention. Further, the citizen claims...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 266, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... or local gangs and clashes between them have erupted more frequently over the la...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, hence, however, if, regarding, so, then, well, whereas, at least, for example, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2342.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92016806723 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6298731222 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.447478991597 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 728.1 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.6041828849 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.523809524 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6666666667 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.42857142857 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.306842914567 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0976680971378 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.101012004551 0.0701772020484 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.165393288681 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.083859840751 0.0628817314937 133% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.