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."
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.
The petition to the city of Centerville states that banning the use of cell phones on sidewalks can decrease the number of reported incidents of sidewalk crime. However, the petition is riddled with quite a few assumptions which are not mentioned in a lucid manner and thus warrants for a review.
The first assumption this argument states the petition states is that Middletown has passed such a ban and the the number of sidewalk crimes has reduced significantly. we cannot compare this ban on two different cities just like that without any examinations determining the similarities between the two cities. It is possible that the economic condition of Middletown is not as good as that of Centerville and many people do not have phones with them. If a lot of people in Middletown do not use phones, then there is a very less chance that they are going to use their phones on the sidewalks and hence less number of sidewalk crimes are reported. The petition also does not state if before passing the cellphone ban, if Middletown reported many sidewalk crimes like Centerville.
The second assumption this argument states is that banning phones will be a solution to reducing sidewalk crimes. It is possible that the most of the crimes are not caused by usage of cellphones. The petition further does not explicitly mention how many sidewalk crimes are due to the usage of cellphones. It is possible that most of the sidewalk crimes happen during early morning when people are running on the sidewalks to do their daily exercise and that is the major reason for causing the sidewalk crimes. To be more pellucid, the petition should have stated or conducted a survey on determing the reason on the sidewalk crimes.
The third assumption this argument states is that people will circumvent around this ban and be eventually be using a digital equipment similar to a cellphone. Nowadays there are a lot of smart-watches available which can function as a good a normal celphone, people can text, make a call and do all the things which can disrupt traffic and lead to sidewalk rage as the petition suggests. People can also put their cellphones in their pocket and converse via bluetooth, thereby nulling the whole point of the ban. Had the ban would be on all the digital devices on which can make a call or a text, thereby disrupting your concentration and increasing your chance to bump into other pedestrains, this assumption is basically void.
Due to these all assumptions, the petition is not cogent and does not guarantee that banning of cellphones will necessarily decrease the sidewalk rage crimes in Centerville.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2146 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.822 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.667 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.812 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.309 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.438 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.608 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 248, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a lucid manner" with adverb for "lucid"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...few assumptions which are not mentioned in a lucid manner and thus warrants for a review. The ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 108, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...at Middletown has passed such a ban and the the number of sidewalk crimes has reduced s...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 108, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...at Middletown has passed such a ban and the the number of sidewalk crimes has reduced s...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 169, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: We
...ewalk crimes has reduced significantly. we cannot compare this ban on two differen...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, however, if, second, so, then, third, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2189.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 445.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9191011236 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59293186426 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7330369968 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.424719101124 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 690.3 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
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: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.3341641654 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.764705882 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1764705882 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.64705882353 5.70786347227 64% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => 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: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.1597994278 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0636462756079 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0469502781411 0.0701772020484 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.110244815452 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0345125638201 0.0628817314937 55% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.