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.
The memo wrongly correlates the realtion between social media participation among young adults and the percent of people voted in Lamont and Chiswick. Therefore, I believe that the author relies his or her conclusions on three unsubstantiated assumptions, which in the end, damages the reliability of the writing as a whole.
Firstly, taking what people say during surveys at face value can be misleading. In the passage, the survey results are solely based on what young people articulate about their usage of social media. First of all, are the social media perceptions of these two groups of young people the same? For example, maybe although they have a lower percentage in terms of social media, the kids in Lamont spend more time with pollitical issues in social media, while the ones in Chiswick with gossips and unrelevant topics. In this case, would it be wise to consider the youth in Lamont less political? Maybe respondents in Chiswick just tried to show themselves as confident and knowledgeable just to impress other people? In this case, does it appear to be reliable to depend on what they say? If one of these assumptions come true, as seen, the logic of the author is strongly weakened.
Secondly, the turnout of election is only related to the attendance of young people, which seems illogical, since young people generally constitute a smaller portion of voters in any place on earth. The writer should have taken other part of the society into consideration on this matter. Why didn't the writer mention about the rates of adults, for it is an important indication of the success of the voters? There is no information even about the ages of respondets; maybe are even ineligible to cast a vote. The results of the surveys can be considered as an indication for latter years, but not for an election that has been held recently. As seen, instead of dealing with only youth, the bigger part of the society should be scrutinized to be able to concieve the outcomes of the election more precisely.
Thirdly, no information is diclosed regarding the demographics of these two young groups in Lamont and Chiswick. Since it is mentioned in the first sentence of the writing, we know that Chiswick is richer than Lamont, but is this the case for the young people as well? If so, the logic of the writer seems to be questionable. For example, if the ones in Chiswick are rich and afford smartphones more easily, the logic of the memo weakens significantly. If these young adults can easily buy techological devices, it is more logical that they use their social media accounts more easily. However, this time, it is harsh to judge the ones in Lamont because of their low rate of social media attendance.
Overall, the assumptions that the writer of the memo seen in Lamont Times Newspaper leaves too many questions unanswered and thus, seems to be lacking persuasiveness.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 492 350
No. of Characters: 2334 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.71 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.744 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.616 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.391 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.425 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 85, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...lated to the attendance of young people, which seems illogical, since young peopl...
^^
Line 5, column 295, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
... into consideration on this matter. Why didnt the writer mention about the rates of a...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, while, for example, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2405.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 491.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89816700611 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70728369723 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70592933826 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494908350305 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 755.1 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.7305220361 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.565217391 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.347826087 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.21739130435 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.197631285603 0.218282227539 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0562570753036 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0527163234537 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116080798329 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0291565041662 0.0628817314937 46% => 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: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.14 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.57 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.