The following appeared in a recommendation from the president of Amburg's Chamber of Commerce."Last October the city of Belleville installed high-intensity lighting in its central business district, and vandalism there declined within a month. The city of

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a recommendation from the president of Amburg's Chamber of Commerce.

"Last October the city of Belleville installed high-intensity lighting in its central business district, and vandalism there declined within a month. The city of Amburg has recently begun police patrols on bicycles in its business district, but the rate of vandalism there remains constant. We should install high-intensity lighting throughout Amburg, then, because doing so is a more effective way to combat crime. By reducing crime in this way, we can revitalize the declining neighborhoods in our city."

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 author has failed to convince us that the installing high-intensity lighting is the most effective way of declining vandalism in a city in comparison to police patrols on bicycle, even if, the claim may seem logical at first glance. The argument, as it stands, is based on questionable assumptions and a faulty line of reasoning, a fact that renders it over-simplistic and unconvincing, also there are terms that lack definition. In what follows, the evidences, which are necessary to admit the conclusion are expressed and elucidated.

First, the author assumes that the reason behind vandalism in Amburg is the low amount of light during nights. So that, the problem would be solved if there were more lighting in the city. What he/she fails to address is that are there any recorder, which proves that no vandalism occurred during daytime in Amburg? Is the darkness of the region during night the only reason of vandalism occurrence? What he/she fails to examine, however, are the underlying causes of vandalism such as: psychological perspectives.

Secondly, the author just implies that in last October the number of vandalism occurred in Belleville showed a decline, he/she does not makes this sentence more clear by adding the statistics to the sentence, who knows maybe the decline was not so much to considered adding high-intensity lighting as an effective factor in that city. The notion would be strengthened by adding the exact amount of this decline. Furthermore, the duration of just one month is not a reliable period for making such a decision for even Belleville city; some other factors might contribute to that unknown amount of declination. Consequently, using that strategy for another city with other variables and features seems to be unsubstantiated. Moreover, the author does not give us any information about the number of police on patrols who are to be substituted by high-intensity lighting. The reason of the constant rate of vandalism in Amburg city might be due to the low number of polices in the city.

Lastly, the author contends that the revitalization a city is in direct relation with the declination in the number of vandalism and other crimes. However, this claim is not valid and more detailed information is needed to be made about revitalization to make a such a conclusion. Even in the previous experience after the number of vandals were decreased in October month, there were no changes in the business qualification of the central region.

In conclusion, considering all the aspects, which have been discussed above, the lack in some evidences, reduces the robustness of the conclusion presented in the article. If the author includes all additional evidences that introduce so far in his/her article, it would have been more thorough and convincing.

Votes
Average: 7 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- In GRE/GMAT, we have to accept all data or evidence are true.

'the author just implies that in last October the number of vandalism occurred in Belleville showed a decline, he/she does not makes this sentence more clear by adding the statistics to the sentence, who knows maybe the decline was not so much to considered adding high-intensity lighting as an effective factor in that city. The notion would be strengthened by adding the exact amount of this decline.'

argument 3 -- OK
----------------

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 461 350
No. of Characters: 2290 1500
No. of Different Words: 214 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.634 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.967 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.905 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.041 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.313 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5