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
The argument that Waymarsh adoption of the policy implemented by Garville city will equally work for Waymarsh makes a number of unwarranted assumptions regarding the unstated facts about the survey, assuming the policy has led to attrition in pollution level and also, the assumption that commuting times have fallen considerably in Garville. Taken as a whole, these unstated assumptions renders the argument highly suspect. Indeed, if these unstated assumptions do not hold true, the argument totally falls apart.
The first leap in the argument is the assumption that implementing the policy of rewarding people who share rides to work by giving them coupons for free gas which seems to work for Garville will also work Waymarsh. The author failed to consider the government capacity. Government of Waymarsh might not have the capacity to implement this policy. The author also failed to question the type people who share ride to work. There is no evidence in the argument showing that the people who share rides to work are also car owner. Most of the people who share ride to work might not own a car, thus the argument that sharing ride to work will reduce commuting time seems invalid. However, for the argument to be valid, one need to evaluate the evidence that Waymarsh government have the capacity to implement this policy and the evidence that the people who share ride are car owners. if this evidence prove positive, then argument is valid.
Another leap in the argument is the assumption that commuting times have fallen considerably because people of Garville told the author so. This is seriously flawed because the argument does not show the amount of people who gave the author such information. It might be two people who ply the same route and were only cognizant of what happens on the quotidian route the ply, it might be just few people from a neighbourhood in Garville that are not aware of what’s going on in other neighbourhood in Garville. Thus, relying on the fact that people told the author something that is not proven is parlous. The author needs to evaluate the evidence that commuting time have actually reduced in Garville. If this comes out positive, the argument seems valid.
Lastly, the argument failed to show why the policy implemented in Garville city should work for Waymarsh city. As it is seen, all the evidences provided in the argument are only about Garville and no one is connected to Waymarsh. The policy might have worked for Garville pobably because Garville have a fewer population than Waymarsh. Garville city is different from Waymarsh in many facets, so it is not believed that what works for Garville city will definitely work Waymarsh city.
In conclusion, the argument that Waymarsh adopting the policy implemented in Garville will work for Waymarsh makes numerous unstated assumptions that seriously debilitate its validity. Unless these assumptions are addressed, the argument totally falls apart. Thus, Waymarsh might be making a major by adopting the policy Garville implemented.
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: 501 350
No. of Characters: 2497 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.731 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.984 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.535 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.783 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.104 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 883, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...e people who share ride are car owners. if this evidence prove positive, then argu...
^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ty will definitely work Waymarsh city. In conclusion, the argument that Waymars...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, lastly, regarding, so, then, thus, 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 : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 34.0 16.3942115768 207% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2557.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 501.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10379241517 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73107062784 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59256312944 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.383233532934 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 813.6 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.7527272186 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.541666667 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.875 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.5 5.70786347227 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.131471208625 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0483149448621 0.0743258471296 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.041324197645 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0889642110577 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0195995808431 0.0628817314937 31% => 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: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.47 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.