The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.
"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the letter to the editor, the author assumes that the traffic jam on the Blue Highway can be reduced by the inclusion of an additional bicycle lane. While this might be true, the author needs to provide three pieces of additional evidence in order to bolster the assertion’s credibility.
First of all, the author needs to provide evidence that the only reason the motorists are lobbying for the widening of the Blue Highway is to reduce their commute time, but this might not be the case as they may be lobbying for the expansion of the Highway for some other reasons. Perhaps the motorists in this particular area are used to facing accidents on the highway on a regular basis. In addition, it is also possible that there are increased number of users of the highway. If either scenario above proves true, then the author’s argument that the motorists are lobbying for the expansion of the road due to the increased commute time does not hold water.
Moreover, the author needs to provide additional evidence on the cause of the increased traffic jam on the green highway is due to the inclusion of an additional lane and not some other reasons. It is possible that the number of residents in that area has increased thus increasing traffic on the highway. It is also possible that the regular commuters of the Green Highway go out more often. If either of these scenarios is true, then the author needs to provide additional evidence in order to improve the persuasiveness of his argument.
Finally, the author needs to provide evidence that the addition of a bicycle lane on the blue highway will be effective in the reduction of traffic jams. For example, it is possible that the majority of the users of the Blue Highway are not residents in the area and thus they are not bicyclists. It is also possible that the presumed residents may not be able to afford a bicycle. If this proves true, then the author's argument is not overly compelling.
In conclusion, the author may be correct in predicting that the inclusion of a bicycle lane on the Blue Highway will be effective in reducing traffic jams. However, as it stands now, the prediction requires three additional pieces of evidence in order to improve its validity. If the author would like to improve the validity of his conclusion, he needs to provide the three additional pieces of evidence required above.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 413 350
No. of Characters: 1926 1500
No. of Different Words: 142 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.508 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.663 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.511 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.294 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.041 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.882 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.414 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.414 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 412, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... bicycle. If this proves true, then the authors argument is not overly compelling. In ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, thus, while, for example, in addition, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1971.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.77239709443 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59530733997 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 145.0 204.123752495 71% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.351089588378 0.468620217663 75% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 639.0 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.7707013983 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.941176471 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.2941176471 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.70588235294 5.70786347227 135% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.164499100257 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0650196522603 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0570698684037 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10457947812 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0616376957651 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.68 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.39 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.