The following appeared as a letter to the editor from the owner of a skate shop in Central Plaza.
"Two years ago the city council voted to prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. They claimed that skateboard users were responsible for litter and vandalism that were keeping other visitors from coming to the plaza. In the past two years, however, there has been only a small increase in the number of visitors to Central Plaza, and litter and vandalism are still problematic. Skateboarding is permitted in Monroe Park, however, and there is no problem with litter or vandalism there. In order to restore Central Plaza to its former glory, then, we recommend that the city lift its prohibition on skateboarding in the plaza."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The argument that the city council of Plaza should remove its ban on skateboarding so as to return Central Plaza to its previous glory is not complete. There are gaps in the logic that render it unconvincing. The following essay will expose these flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be made more cogent.
First, it appears a lot to expect that after just restraining the use of skateboard in the plaza, the city must witness a remarkable rise in the number of visitors to Central Plaza. Perchance the city still suffers gravely from other serious problems such as low level of public safety or high criminal rate in the downtown which just neutralise the approved law by the city council on banning skateboarding. If the writer had shown that other aspects of the Central Plaza are perfectly fine when it comes to attracting potential tourists, the argument could have been strengthed.
Moreover, the argument unfairly presupposes that since there is no issue with garbage and vandalism in Monroe Park, where skateboarding is allowed, then the plaza should get rid of its ban on skateboarding to restore Central Plaza to its former glory. Perhaps those in charge of Monroe Park have taken other steps just than permitting skateboarding in order to resolve litter and vandalism problems. It is entirely possible that they may have employed more workers responsible for keeping the park constantly clean with the result that the problem with litter is highly mitigated. In this regard, the line of reasoning would become stronger, if the author had provided more information on
whether other possible measures were adopted by Monroe's authorities simultaneous with allowing skateboarding there so as to curb the problems with rubbish or vandalism considerably or not.
To summarise, the argument is not wholly sensible. The evidence in support of the recommendation that the city council of Plaza should lift its prohibition on skateboarding so as to return Central Plaza to its former ideal condition does little to substantiate that suggestion, since it does not address the suppositions already brought up.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 12 15
No. of Words: 344 350
No. of Characters: 1748 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.307 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.081 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.8 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.092 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.589 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.051 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 84, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
... should remove its ban on skateboarding so as to return Central Plaza to its previous gl...
^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 116, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...neous with allowing skateboarding there so as to curb the problems with rubbish or vanda...
^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 174, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...d lift its prohibition on skateboarding so as to return Central Plaza to its former idea...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, as to, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1793.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 344.0 441.139720559 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21220930233 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.30665032142 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85707015162 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.552325581395 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 550.8 705.55239521 78% => 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: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 77.8158438594 57.8364921388 135% => OK
Chars per sentence: 149.416666667 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.6666666667 23.324526521 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.75 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.311679031363 0.218282227539 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103728956446 0.0743258471296 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0814258750633 0.0701772020484 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.165574103535 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.044893342787 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.4 14.3799401198 121% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.53 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 Out of 6
---------------------
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.