The following is a letter to the editor of the Waymarsh Times.
"Traffic here in Waymarsh is becoming a problem. Although just three years ago a state traffic survey showed that the typical driving commuter took 20 minutes to get to work, the commute now takes closer to 40 minutes, according to the survey just completed. Members of the town council already have suggested more road building to address the problem, but as well as being expensive, the new construction will surely disrupt some of our residential neighborhoods. It would be better to follow the example of the nearby city of Garville. Last year Garville implemented a policy that rewards people who share rides to work, giving them coupons for free gas. Pollution levels in Garville have dropped since the policy was implemented, and people from Garville tell me that commuting times have fallen considerably. There is no reason why a policy like Garville's shouldn't work equally well in Waymarsh."
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.
Traffic seems to be the biggest problem when it comes to travelling from one place to another, especially while travelling to work place. In the letter, the editor suggests that, while Waymarsh city is experiencing traffic at an elevated level, Garville city overcame traffic by commuting to several offers that benefit people travelling on their own; however, while the conclusion might be veracious, it rests on several unfounded assumptions, that if not substantiated, dramatically weakens the persuasiveness of the letter. Thus, the following three questions must be addressed.
Firstly, are the roads of Waymarsh perfectly constructed? The editor states that traffic is caused mainly due to shortage of roads; thus, indicating the large vehicle population. Perhaps, the traffic was not due to vehicle population but the road conditions. That is, if the roads are in bad condition, it would be difficult for vehicles to move smoothly, thus resulting in commotion and ultimately traffic due to poor constructions. Moreover, constructions due to highways might lead to occupying half of the roads area, leading to scarce of area for large vehicles to travel, which would block the road.
Secondly, in Garville, where do the workers live? Did they start to live nearby their work place to avoid travelling time? The editor states that pollution level have decreased since the establishment of the benefit. Maybe, people travelling from long distances shifted their living to places nearby their work place, thereby riding a bicycle or taking a train to work. Perhaps, people just walked to their work place.
Thirdly, would the policy introduced in Garville work “equally” well in Waymarsh city? The editor points out that the scheme which is said to be adopted would work perfectly in Waymarsh. In any city, when a scheme is taken into account, it impacts the society and the economy. Depending upon the economy, if Waymarsh is in an economy crisis, then people won’t prefer share driving because of the cost which would be allocated for the share trip. Thus, preventing people from travelling together. Moreover, they would prefer travelling in bus or train whose cost would be cheap and travelling time would also be minimized.
In conclusion, the letter, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to several unwarranted assumptions. If the editor is able to provide the three pieces of evidences stated above, and perhaps conduct a systematic research study, then it will be possible to determine whether the traffic in Waymarsh city would be reduced after adopting Garville’s policy.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 416 350
No. of Characters: 2116 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.516 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.087 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.669 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.81 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.133 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.301 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 511, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'roads'' or 'road's'?
Suggestion: roads'; road's
...ays might lead to occupying half of the roads area, leading to scarce of area for lar...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, well, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2195.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.28915662651 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8050780322 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.53734939759 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 664.2 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 78.5265095265 57.8364921388 136% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.523809524 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7619047619 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.2380952381 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.201065819619 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0606923425559 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0411016305351 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112546094295 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0389017301745 0.0628817314937 62% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.99 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.