The following editorial appeared in the Lamont Times newspaper.
"During last year's election, only 35 percent of people living in Lamont voted, whereas in the nearby affluent town of Chiswick, that number was 75 percent. In a recent survey of young adults, over 80 percent of respondents in Chiswick reported frequently using their mobile devices to access social media sites. However, in Lamont, only 60 percent of young adults who own mobile devices reported accessing their social media accounts on a regular basis. The survey also revealed that young adults in both towns who use social media at least once a day are more likely to consider themselves knowledgeable about current political and social issues, which is considered a key characteristic of those who vote. Clearly, the number of people who vote in elections is higher in Chiswick than in Lamont because more of Chiswick's young adults actively participate in social media."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
According to the editorial, the author concludes more people vote in Chiswick than in Lamont because of the former's considerable social media use among its youth. The author comes to this conclusion based on several statistics and a recent survey conducted in both towns. While the author's assertion could prove true, there are three alternative explanations that should be considered.
First of all, one explanation for the higher voting share in Chiswick is the possibility that this city has more people who are eligible to vote. Perhaps a majority of the residents in Lamont have not yet reached the voting age of 18, meaning that, even if they wanted to, they could not participate in the election. In addition, it is possible that many of the residents in Lamont have been disqualified from voting because they have committed a crime or they were never eligible because they are not citizens but rather immigrants. If either scenario above is true, then the author's contention is significantly weakenend.
Another possibility that would hinder the persusasiveness of the argument is the survey being conducted in a non-scientific manner. Perhaps the citizens of Lamont seem like their social media use is high because the survey was conducted outside of a technology expo, leading to impression that most people in the town actually use social media to a significant degree. Another scenario that might be true is that the survey contained a small sample size that is not represntative of the citizens of Chiswick as a whole. If it is true that the survey was performed in a non-empirical manner, then the author's conclusion does not hold water.
Finally, an explanation that would decrease the credibility of the argument is that people's consideration of their own knowledge is usually overestimated. The citizens of Chiswick who responded to the survey indicated that they were knowledgeable about current issues, but perhaps this is not a correct assessment of the information they possess about what is happening in the world. Maybe they feel as if they have knowledge of current events, but, in reality, their knowledge is superficial and not fleshed out. If that proves to be the case, then the editorial's driving argument is not overly compelling.
To conclude, although the central claim of the editorial might hold water, indicating there is a connection between social media and voting, the author needs to consider the above three alternate explanations if he hopes to bolster its persuasiveness. The author should provide evidence regarding the number of people eligible to vote in both towns as well as the reliability of the
survey.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2186 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.048 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.886 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.471 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.226 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 283, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rvey conducted in both towns. While the authors assertion could prove true, there are t...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 578, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...either scenario above is true, then the authors contention is significantly weakenend. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 601, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...med in a non-empirical manner, then the authors conclusion does not hold water. Finall...
^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 350, Rule ID: BOTH_AS_WELL_AS[1]
Message: Probable usage error. Use 'and' after 'both'.
Suggestion: and
...f people eligible to vote in both towns as well as the reliability of the survey.
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, if, may, regarding, so, then, well, while, in addition, as well as, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2232.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15473441109 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91725497836 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.480369515012 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 709.2 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.6305185623 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.294117647 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4705882353 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.23529411765 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.145731128952 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0494464088957 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0375649628629 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0812794581631 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0207335982808 0.0628817314937 33% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.81 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.