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 given argument states that by banning the use of cell phones on sidewalk would decrease the cases if sidewalk rage which generally lead to assaults, property damage, etc. in Centerville similar to Middletown The argument is based on several faulty assumptions which makes it very weak to follow.
Firstly, it assumes that the two cities Centerville and Middletown are identical in every aspect and thus whatever works in one , will definitely work in the other. The assumption is completely absurd as the two cities could differ at many levels, namely, the population size, the sidewalk area, number of sidewalks, number of criminals in the city, number of people who use cell phones on the sidewalk etc. which could very well affect the frequency of sidewalk rage due to the use of cell phones. If the cities are indeed similar then it could surely strengthen the argument, so this evidence is clearly required to evaluate the argument.
Secondly, the argument takes into the consideration, that the use of cell phones on sidewalk is the ultimate cause of the sidewalk crimes which is very hard to believe. Since, there could be many factors that would cause sidewalk rage like, anger management issues, increase in number of criminals in the city who could even attack people not using a cell phone or damaged sidewalks which could be major factor in disrupting pedestrian traffic. Thus, a proper study must be performed to prove the claim that the use of cell phones are the main cause for street violence.
Lastly, the case of Middletown that the argument states also is not very strong. There is no clear evidence to prove that the incidents of sidewalk rage has decreased only due to the ban on the use of mobiles on sidewalks, as the reduction in crime reports could be merely due to a decrease in number of criminals on the street, effective law enforcements, more number of law abiding citizens or the citizens are unlikely to complain due to their busy schedule and thus the reported complains have gone down. So, a detailed investigation and analysis should be done to figure out the main cause of the decrease in reported sidewalk crimes which could either strengthen or weaken the argument.
Due to many stated and unstated faulty assumptions that the argument considers the argument stays unvalid until the stated evidences are procured.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 397 350
No. of Characters: 1921 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.464 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.839 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.5 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 36.091 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 17.82 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.818 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.432 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.671 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 128, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...ry aspect and thus whatever works in one , will definitely work in the other. The ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1970.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 397.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.96221662469 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46372701284 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57390446939 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.476070528967 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 637.2 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => 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: 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: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 88.2570211096 57.8364921388 153% => OK
Chars per sentence: 151.538461538 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.5384615385 23.324526521 131% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.53846153846 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.151039522062 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0643602174182 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0419849467426 0.0701772020484 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0925623733481 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.056664099127 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.2 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.03 48.3550499002 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.08 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.