The following memo was published by the Welzaton City Commission.
“A recent nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a safety helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, cites a 200 percent increase in the number of serious accidents involving bicycles during the same period. Meanwhile, results of a local survey of frequent bicycle riders indicate that 75 percent of those riders feel “much safer” on busy roads when they wear helmets than when they don’t. Clearly, the best explanation for the rise in bicycle-related accidents is that bicyclists take more risks now than they did ten years ago because they feel safer when they are wearing helmets.”
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
Your Answer
In the memo published by Welzaton City Commission, the author concludes that the number of bicycle-related accidents, within a 10-year time span, has increased because of the increase in the percentage of people who wear helmets. The author suggests that wearing a helmet makes people feel safe and hence, these bicyclists take more risks which results in accidents. Although the cited pieces of evidence seem logical and probable, the assumptions on which the conclusion relies do not lend credible support to the argument. Hence, the argument seems logically unconvincing in several aspects.
Firstly, the author assumes that the current population of bicyclists would be the same as it was 10 years ago. Perhaps, the number of bicyclists 10 years ago was 100 but now it has been increased to 1000. If this is true, then the number of bicyclists wearing helmets now would probably be less than the number of bicyclists wearing helmets 10 years ago. As percentage is a relative term, therefore, an increase in the percentage of bicyclists wearing helmets would lead to inaccurate results. Further, was the study conducted on a large sample of bicyclists and which covered the entire population?. What was the margin of error? Perhaps if the study was conducted only on the bicyclists of the urban regions, especially on those who commute daily through a highway where there is a presence of a large amount of traffic, then this study could give some exaggerated results. To strengthen the argument, the author should have provided additional information about the study that was conducted.
In addition to this, the author assumes that the increase in the number of accidents can be attributed to the increase in the number of bicyclists wearing a helmet. These helmets made them feel safer and confident as a result of which they took several risks, which further led to accidents. But the author does not take into account any other factors that could be responsible for the increase in the number of accidents. Perhaps, the increase in the number of vehicles in the city and therefore more there is more congestion and traffic on highways and streets which may be the fundamental cause of these accidents. Further, the traffic rules and policies would not be strict and stringent as a result of which people would not comply with the rules and regulations. Perhaps, helmets play a major role in protecting people from accidents rather than being a cause of its occurrence. Without ruling out these possibilities, the author cannot reach a hasty conclusion that wearing helmets is the cause of several bicycle-related accidents.
Finally, the author assumes that there has been a massive rise in the number of bicycle-related accidents. Again, the percentage is a relative term, and therefore due to an increase in the population of people as well as the presence of more vehicles, the overall number of bike-related accidents could be at a constant rate within these 10 years
To sum up, the argument consists of some obvious fallacies and loopholes. To strengthen the argument, the author should have provided additional information about the study that was conducted and the changes that occurred within the past 10 years. Small, biased, and unrepresentative samples can weaken the argument. Further, the author should investigate what other factors could be attributed to the increase in the number of accidents and what role does a helmet play in ensuring the safety of that individual. But in the absence of this data, the argument relies on certain doubtful assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 594 350
No. of Characters: 2967 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.937 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.995 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.756 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 225 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 171 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 75 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.846 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.063 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.499 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, so, then, therefore, well, in addition, as a result, as well as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2962.0 2260.96107784 131% => OK
No of words: 580.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10689655172 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90746259869 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84433851595 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 914.4 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.2652117737 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.416666667 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1666666667 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.197104048046 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0653709104779 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0620940722352 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112482659885 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0786085792205 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.