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.
The argument states a recommendation that suggests addition on a bicycle lane to combat increased traffic on Blue Highway. It bases the recommendation on two primary reasons that the residents in nearby area are keen bicyclists and addition of extra lane in Green Highway case did not reduce the traffic. As it can be seen the reasons on which the recommendation in based are contained with loopholes and inklings which need further evidence to stand firmly.
The Major leap that the argument takes is it bases its stand on the assumption that adding a new lane would not be substantial as it had failed in Green Highway instance. Green Highway is a different road which may be having disparate road conditions, difference in number of commuters plying daily, quality of roads and types of vehicles might differ substantially. There might be huge percent of commuters traveling by private vehicles. Also, after addition of the extra lane, the number of vehicles might have increased tremendously which might have resulted in no significant decrease in traffic. For the assumption to be veritable, we need strong evidences which suggests that the Blue Highway and the Green highway are similar in all aspects and also there was no increase in past year in number of commuters on Green Highway.
Addressing the second reason, the keen bicyclists in nearby area might not choose to travel by bicycles as they may be going for work or other important things in which they would not want to flag or sweat till they reach the destination. Also, in addition, there will be commuters who belong to upper age range and for whom, traveling by bicycles will be a taxing task. Thus, adding new bicycle lane would not decrease the traffic of other vehicles while it might even take more space of the Highway, thus increasing the traffic.
Finally, considering the complaints of increased traffic increasing the commuting time by double seem superficial if the commuting time is not a large number, doubling it would not necessarily mean increased substantial commuting time. Also the anonymity of the letter raises few alarms which questions the authenticity of the argument provided. For the argument to hold value, evidence proving its contention should be provided as well as the statistical data verifying the claims in the argument.
Thus, considering the points which point out the inklings that suggest strong evidence is required, holds the argument not substantial.
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: 20 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 405 350
No. of Characters: 2022 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.486 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.993 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.704 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.319 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.606 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed further evidence to stand firmly. The Major leap that the argument takes i...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...umber of commuters on Green Highway. Addressing the second reason, the keen b...
^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ighway, thus increasing the traffic. Finally, considering the complaints of i...
^^
Line 7, column 239, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...n increased substantial commuting time. Also the anonymity of the letter raises few ...
^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...erifying the claims in the argument. Thus, considering the points which point...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, if, may, second, so, then, thus, well, while, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2069.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 405.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10864197531 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48604634366 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7675653148 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479012345679 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 629.1 705.55239521 89% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.1445073173 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.933333333 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.6 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.165308819492 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0631381644977 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.074821964505 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0932539910378 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.070903479541 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.