The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of Brindleburg to the city council.
"Two years ago, the town of Seaside Vista opened a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. Since then, the Seaside Vista Tourism Board has reported a 20% increase in visitors. In addition, local banks reported a steep rise in the number of new business loan applications they received this year. The amount of tax money collected by Seaside Vista has also increased, allowing the town to announce plans to improve Seaside Vista's roads and bridges. We recommend building a similar golf course and resort hotel in Brindleburg. We predict that this project will generate additional tax revenue that the city can use to fund much-needed public improvements."
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.
The argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the evidence offered to argue the main claims of this argument are not as cogent as they appear. Concluding building a golf course and hotel in Brindleburg will have beneficial outcomes assuming the two cities share similarities and other factors did not play a role in the success in Seaside Vista, is unreasonable.
Firstly, the mayor of Brindleburg fails to provide evidence to support the similarities of Seaside Vista and Brindleburg. If these two cities differed in the tourism rates prior to building the new attractions, the comparison is illogical. Before the additional of the new golf course and resort, it could have been that Seaside Vista was the epicenter for tourism in the area and already had people visiting the popular area like Los Angles in California. Compared to Brindleburg, which could be a rural city that does attract much attention like Enumclaw, Washington. This would mean, the results of public advancements could also be disparate, demonstrating differing results. If this were the case, the comparison that the arguer has established are unreliable. On the other hand, if the author presented information the illustrated the two cities were similar and showed the same flow of tourism in the past, the argument would be more plausible. In either case, it cannot be surely said if something is successful in one area, then it will definitely be successful in another.
Moreover, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine, Seaside Vista and Brindleburg have shown identical tourist rates and there is a credible method to conclude the success will mirror one another, it is still baseless to assume the favorable outcomes in Seaside Vista was due to the new innovations. So, the author continues to speculate that no other factors could influence the success of Seaside Vista. For example, the economy could have been flourishing for that period of time. This would have allowed the residents to earn more money and also save which would show why there was a steep rise in loan applications and tax money collection. Then, this could be the distinctive reason of Seaside Vista’s success. However, if there was data brought to light that showed no change in economy trends or income rates, then the argument would hold more validity. But even so, statistics from two years ago cannot be sufficient to argue this claim.
Lastly, the argument is built upon superficial data. The author states “, the Seaside Vista Tourism Board has reported a 20% increase in visitors.” But it is not mentioned where this data is taken from and how it was conducted. It could be this data was part of theoretical results and mean it is not actually plausible and weaken the argument.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions in the argument, the author fails to compile a compelling case to prove Brindleburg will surely show intended results after public improvements.
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 490 350
No. of Characters: 2440 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.705 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.98 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.671 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.304 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.47 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.739 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.469 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.041 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 493, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...my could have been flourishing for that period of time. This would have allowed the residents ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, still, then, even so, for example, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2517.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 491.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12627291242 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70728369723 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78124978372 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496945010183 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 792.9 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => 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: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.2118449799 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.434782609 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.347826087 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.17391304348 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.26342423381 0.218282227539 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.074198455672 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.082301930897 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139395226208 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0629668369662 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.76 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.