The following is a petition to the city council of Centerville:
"Over the past three years, there has been a marked increase in cases of 'sidewalk rage,' similar to the irrational anger drivers experience on the road, but instead among sidewalk walkers. The result is an increase in assaults, property damage, and disruptions of normal pedestrian traffic. In order to address this growing problem, the council must ban cell phone use on sidewalks. Not only do people texting or using their phones slow down pedestrian traffic, but they are also more likely to walk into the road or bump into other walkers. Children are especially vulnerable because they are too short to be easily seen. Middletown passed such a ban and not only have they heard no complaints, but the reported incidents of sidewalk crime has gone down significantly."
he following argument is flawed for numerous reasons. The calims of the author is completely uncalled for and is completely vague.
First of all, the author states that there are increased number of cases over past three years of 'sidewalk rage' but this statement seems to be opaque as the author failed provide details about the 'sidewalk rage' that took place in Centerville. Further, the author didn't provide the number of 'sidewalk rage' cases that took place in Centerville.
Secondly, even if we accept the fact that assaults or other serious disruptions took place in Centerville but there is no clear evidence provided that supports the claims of the author that those crimes only because of the sidewalkers. It may be possilbe that the assaults, property damage or even disruptions of pedestrian traffic are part of some criminal activity which has nothing to do with the sidewalkers.
There are some other aspects of the argument that is unanswered. The author asking the council to ban the use of cell phone. But it is unclear how would use of cell phone can cause traffic issues? Even though, the author stated that texting would cause traffic problems but the statement is too vague as it does not produce any proof that such incident has happended in the past. Today people are conscious about there surroundings and people will unlikely use cell phones while walking or even crossing the road.
Finally, the argument claims without warrant that middletown passed such ban which positively affected the traffic issues but this doesn't mean that the ban would ameliorate the issue of the Centerville as they are two completely different towns and their road maps are completely different.
Because the argument makes several unwarranted assumptions, it fails to make convincing case that the ban of using cell phone while walking would solve the traffic issues as well other problems.
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: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 315 350
No. of Characters: 1554 1500
No. of Different Words: 160 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.213 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.933 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.452 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 108 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.231 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.46 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.697 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: He
he following argument is flawed for numero...
^^
Line 3, column 264, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...ace in Centerville. Further, the author didnt provide the number of sidewalk rage cas...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 132, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ly affected the traffic issues but this doesnt mean that the ban would ameliorate the ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, while, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 29.0 55.5748502994 52% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1594.0 2260.96107784 71% => OK
No of words: 313.0 441.139720559 71% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09265175719 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20616286096 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51940787078 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 162.0 204.123752495 79% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.517571884984 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 490.5 705.55239521 70% => 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: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.5458635051 57.8364921388 134% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.615384615 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0769230769 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.92307692308 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
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: 0.126665109551 0.218282227539 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0437622000015 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0669977291035 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0581123797269 0.128457276422 45% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.076478353817 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 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: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
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?
---------------------
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.