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 author suggests that it's important to enact a policy like Garville's to solve the traffic problem. However, a few pieces of evidence need to be established before a choice as the policy can be made.
The author suggests that the time now it takes on commuting increase twice as much as three years ago. Still, the author fails to inform the validity of the statistics he got. What if the statistics is just based on some unreliable information online. Even if the author truly carried out the experiment on his own, it is still possible that it was Chinese New Year when he conducted the experiment so that there was heavy traffic at that time due to the custom for Chinese to go back to their home and celebrate it together. In Contrary, when he did the experiment three years ago, it might be in the midnight so that there were no too many cars on the roads. Hence, author needs to provide more information about the statistics he get to complete his idea.
The author also suggests that the pollution level and the time spent on commuting decreased significantly after they had encouraged people went to work with bike rather than with car. However, what he neglect is that what proportion is reduced after implementing the policy. If the reduction is only about one percent, it is clear that it has little help in solving the problem. Also, he claims that the time spent on commuting decreased, but does that mean time spent on commuting for all people in this area decrease? Maybe the statistics only focus on the people who still commute with car and neglect the people who choose to go to work with bike.
It is evident that it takes much more time for those with further working space to go to work with bike. If taking car is ten times faster than riding bike, the time that the worker needs to arrive at their working space can be enormously much more. Hence, it is possible that he will be scolded by his boss and even got fired, resulting in bigger disadvantage.
Consequently, to make the argument more convincing, the author needs to provide more information to strengthen his argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 375 350
No. of Characters: 1695 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.401 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.52 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.416 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 101 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 71 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.013 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.335 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.158 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 733, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'gets'.
Suggestion: gets
...ore information about the statistics he get to complete his idea. The author also ...
^^^
Line 3, column 201, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'neglects'.
Suggestion: neglects
... rather than with car. However, what he neglect is that what proportion is reduced afte...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, hence, however, if, may, so, still, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1735.0 2260.96107784 77% => OK
No of words: 375.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.62666666667 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40055868397 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.47763327929 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.490666666667 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 549.9 705.55239521 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.0742593022 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.058823529 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0588235294 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.82352941176 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.161608511529 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0554101610047 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0600834703988 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0755278041976 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0467252531486 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.57 12.5979740519 76% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.51 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 98.500998004 67% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.