The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette, a local newspaper .
"The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city's limited budget. However, at some of our recent meetings, we failed to make important decisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who are not even residents of Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot fully understand the business and politics of the city. After all, only Oak City residents pay city taxes, and therefore only residents understand how that money could best be used to improve the city. We recommend, then, that the Committee for a Better Oak City vote to restrict its membership to city residents only. We predict that, without the interference of non-residents, the committee will be able to make Oak City a better place in which to live and work."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The letter written in the local newspaper has stated that to make Oak city a better place, it should remove people on the committee who are not residents of the city. However, while the conclusion drawn might hold water as of now it rests on several unfounded assumptions that, if not substantiated, would dramatically weaken the argument. Thus, the following two questions are to be answered.
Firstly, why are the objections raised by committee members who are not residents of the oak city considered foolish, the people of the city government might have some kind of bias towards the residents in such cases, even if the objections are good enough they might be considered as foolish, perhaps the decisions itself are bad making the objections worthy, If either of the scenarios is true the credibility of the letter will be hampered.
Secondly, why are the residents of oak city considered the best people to make good decisions? Sometimes residents may not have enough knowledge to object to a decision made by the city, this could happen in other ways as well, some residents may use the opportunity to increase the value of properties or promote their business, if these factors prove true it may hinder the conclusion of the letter.
Lastly, Is the prediction of improvement of the city without the involvement of non-residents reliable?. As there should be several factors to be taken into consideration such as non-residents might have outside knowledge which could be very helpful while making decisions, if such a condition is true, it may make the assertion of the letter unpersuasive.
In conclusion, the conclusion of removal of non-residents in the committee to improve the city relies on some unfounded assumptions, for these assumptions to hold water, the questions mentioned above are to be answered.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 9 15
No. of Words: 300 350
No. of Characters: 1487 1500
No. of Different Words: 142 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.162 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.957 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.866 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 105 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 33.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 19.636 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.889 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.441 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.441 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, thus, well, while, as to, in conclusion, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 1.0 11.1786427146 9% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1525.0 2260.96107784 67% => OK
No of words: 300.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08333333333 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.16179145029 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95636977089 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 146.0 204.123752495 72% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.486666666667 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 482.4 705.55239521 68% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
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: 9.0 19.7664670659 46% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 33.0 22.8473053892 144% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 114.134856342 57.8364921388 197% => OK
Chars per sentence: 169.444444444 119.503703932 142% => OK
Words per sentence: 33.3333333333 23.324526521 143% => OK
Discourse Markers: 13.4444444444 5.70786347227 236% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.222782363049 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114755388689 0.0743258471296 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0988842865214 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.136306428647 0.128457276422 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0401323028548 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.2 14.3799401198 134% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.98 48.3550499002 79% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.2 12.197005988 133% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.78 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 58.0 98.500998004 59% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.2 11.1389221557 136% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.