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.
While it seems true that the success story in Garville could be reduplicated in Waymarsh, the editor's conclusion is actually derived from evidence based on unwarranted assumptions. Before the editors made such a recommendation to the town council, he or she should evaluate the evidence he/she cited to strengthen his/her point of view on promoting the shared rides and gas coupons.
First of all, the editor mentioned that after the implementation of the reward policy on shared rides and gas coupons in Garville, the commuting times have fallen significantly and so this policy will make the same result to Waymarsh. It is based on the assumption that people in Waymarsh will positively accept and start the rides sharing. However, we do not know whether it could be a great incentive for them. Maybe people in Waymarsh would rather spend more time commuting than to share the rides with strangers. In such a case, the gas coupons would serve no effect to mitigate the traffic. Therefore, before the editor concluded that the policy in one town will achieve the same effect in other towns, he/she should try to find other evidence, such as another survey on people's reaction to the new policy, to support his/her conclusion.
In addition, it mentioned that three years ago the commuting time is only 20 minutes while now it is doubled according to a recent completed survey. Nonetheless, the editor did not tell us if the survey also conducted an analysis of the root causes of increasing traffic, and clearly the editor did not take this factor into consideration when making his conclusion. What if the main reason for the increasing commuting time is actually not due to those people who drive to work but the increasing tourists who come to Waymarsh for visiting? Perhaps during these three years, Waymarsh has grown to be a tourist spot. Then even though the inhabitants in Waymarsh start shared rides, the increasing vehicles of tourists will still make the problem happen and even worsen. Unless the root cause of the heavier traffic is analyzed, it is not convincing to me that giving the coupons and promoting the shared rides will solve the issue.
Lastly, it pointed out that the decreasing vehicle on roads of Garville also has another great side-effect, the air pollution has dropped since the implementation of the reward policy. It seems appealing at first but is still not enough reliable as it might not preclude other conditions. What if the Garville government implemented another policy of limiting the emission of the exhaust gas from industries at the same time that the reward policy is implemented? Then the decreasing of air pollution is not the achievement of increasing shared rides but the result of other policies. Ultimately, the editor should review carefully if there are other causes of the results.
To sum up, unless further evidence is provided to prove the editor's unstated assumptions, his/her conclusion of having the same policy in Waymarsh as Garville sounds not reliable enough.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 20 15
No. of Words: 507 350
No. of Characters: 2474 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.745 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.88 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.777 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 95, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'editors'' or 'editor's'?
Suggestion: editors'; editor's
... could be reduplicated in Waymarsh, the editors conclusion is actually derived from evi...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 96, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[14]
Message: Did you mean 'side effect' (=adverse effect, unintended consequence)? Open compounds are not hyphenated.
Suggestion: side effect
...oads of Garville also has another great side-effect, the air pollution has dropped since th...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, nonetheless, so, still, then, therefore, while, in addition, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2544.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06772908367 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70122533448 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.482071713147 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 789.3 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.0956448308 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.2 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.35 5.70786347227 129% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.17446855058 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0537032952524 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0550516537246 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0908966377229 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0737183831746 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.46 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.