The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Smith Jones.
"In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones plans to build a multi-million dollar subway system. The subway will run through the major downtown areas, a part of the town where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. For years, residents have been complaining both about inconsistent buses, and the general lack of safety while riding the buses. Additionally, the subway will be running twenty-four hours a day. Since motorists will spend less time in traffic, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones expects to see an immediate increase in worker productivity, which will improve the economy of Briggsville."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In this argument, the Mayor claims that a new downtown subway system will immediately stimulate workers' productivity and improve the economy of Briggsville. To support his opinion, the author made serveral assumptions.
Firstly, the author assumes that most of citizens take buses as transportation for work. However, it lacks effective evidence to support this statement. People may travel to work by private cars or bicycles. If the congestion is caused by overwhelming private cars, it will be counterproductive to build a subway system since construction will adversely affect the traffic there and lead to more severe congestion. Therefore, to support the Mayor's suggestion, the author should provide more evidence on the composition of the traffic congestion in Briggsville, such as the proportion of private cars, buses and bicycles. Moreover, a research on the travel preference of its people is also vital to evaulate the proposal.
Secondly, the author assumes that the traffic congestion will last for twenty-four hours a day. Consider this twenty-four hours subway is provided, then more workers will go out and enjoy their evening life until very late, which absolutely will make them less energetic at work and less productive. In addition, most congestion only occur during working days. Hence, a seven-day twenty-four hours subway system might make the government in deficit as much less people will travel to downtown area on weekends. Moreover, most of those who complain about the bus system may live outside of the downtown area. Therefore, to build a downtown subway will not slove their problem by reducing travelling time.
Thirdly, the author seems to assume that traffic jam occurs in the major downtown areas. However, it might be the reverse situation. Consider, for example, at the peak hour in the afternoon, most people who live outside of town are travelling home, causing congestion on the way outside downtown area. In this case, it is useless to build a downtown subway but more effective approach is to imporve the road and public transportation conditions outside downtown area.
Moreover, the author fails to explicate the association between traffic time and workers' productivity. Will less traffic time directly lead to productivity improvement? Apparently, productivity of workers is related with many factors such as salary, wellfare and promotion, of which traffic time might be a minor one. Hence, to reduce traffic time may not necessarily increase productivity.
In sum, the author makes several assumptions which he fails to provide effective evidence for. To verify the Mayor's claim to build a downtown subway, the arguer has to prove that the congestion is occuring twenty-four hours a day in the downtown areas. Moreover, the author has to illustrate the association between traffic time and workers' productivity, and the profitability of this multi-million subway project as well.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 34, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the citizens') or simply say ''most citizens''.
Suggestion: most of the citizens; most citizens
...s. Firstly, the author assumes that most of citizens take buses as transportation for work. ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 632, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[1]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'research'.
Suggestion: research
...ate cars, buses and bicycles. Moreover, a research on the travel preference of its people ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 722, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...is also vital to evaulate the proposal. Secondly, the author assumes that the tr...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 458, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... make the government in deficit as much less people will travel to downtown area on ...
^^^^
Line 5, column 705, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ir problem by reducing travelling time. Thirdly, the author seems to assume that...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 469, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ation conditions outside downtown area. Moreover, the author fails to explicate ...
^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'apparently', 'but', 'first', 'firstly', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then', 'therefore', 'third', 'thirdly', 'well', 'as to', 'for example', 'in addition', 'such as']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.268858800774 0.25644967241 105% => OK
Verbs: 0.141199226306 0.15541462614 91% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0928433268859 0.0836205057962 111% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0599613152805 0.0520304965353 115% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0193423597679 0.0272364105082 71% => OK
Prepositions: 0.104448742747 0.125424944231 83% => OK
Participles: 0.0174081237911 0.0416121511921 42% => Some participles wanted.
Conjunctions: 2.94966740157 2.79052419416 106% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0386847195358 0.026700313972 145% => OK
Particles: 0.00193423597679 0.001811407834 107% => OK
Determiners: 0.0986460348162 0.113004496875 87% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0290135396518 0.0255425247493 114% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00967117988395 0.0127820249294 76% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2950.0 2731.13054187 108% => OK
No of words: 459.0 446.07635468 103% => OK
Chars per words: 6.42701525054 6.12365571057 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62863751936 4.57801047555 101% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.420479302832 0.378187486979 111% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.324618736383 0.287650121315 113% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.22440087146 0.208842608468 107% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.156862745098 0.135150697306 116% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94966740157 2.79052419416 106% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 207.018472906 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.464052287582 0.469332199767 99% => OK
Word variations: 51.9327695513 52.1807786196 100% => OK
How many sentences: 25.0 20.039408867 125% => OK
Sentence length: 18.36 23.2022227129 79% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.3575058953 57.7814097925 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.0 141.986410481 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.36 23.2022227129 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.88 0.724660767414 121% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 3.58251231527 167% => OK
Readability: 50.8218736383 51.9672348444 98% => OK
Elegance: 1.77192982456 1.8405768891 96% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.423778167478 0.441005458295 96% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0979087452691 0.135418324435 72% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0737628930262 0.0829849096947 89% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.525675368521 0.58762219726 89% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.156996873489 0.147661913831 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.162012609548 0.193483328276 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0910043143498 0.0970749176394 94% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.333312040554 0.42659136922 78% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0770558952501 0.0774707102158 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.292620956345 0.312017818177 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729463605543 0.0698173142475 104% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.33743842365 132% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.82512315271 166% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 6.46551724138 170% => OK
Negative topic words: 6.0 5.36822660099 112% => OK
Neutral topic words: 7.0 2.82389162562 248% => OK
Total topic words: 24.0 14.657635468 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.