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.
In the town of Centerville, sidewalk rage certainly appears to cause a problem to the well-being of it's citizens, however suggesting that a cell phone ban would completely solve this problem is overly optimistic. There are many factors behind these types of emotional outbursts, and to posit that the use of cell phones on sidewalks is the sole root would be based on a seriously flawed argument. There is a copious amount of evidence required before such an argument could possibly be considered valid.
To begin, this stance assumes that cell phone use on sidewalks is the major cause of sidewalk rage. We have no way of telling whether this is true or not - we need evidence to disprove all other possibilities. Perhaps the people of Centerville become enraged as a result of poor sidewalk conditions, or the current economical situation in their town. Before suggesting that banning cell phones would clear all cases of sidewalk rage, we must be sure that the cell phone usage is actually causing this phenomeon.
Even if we had some clear cut way of knowing that the use of cell phones on sidewalks was causing this rage, we would need to know the proportion of persons actually doing so. In the case of a few obnoxious users, it would be more efficiant to simply ban these few offenders than to instate a city-wide ban. The argument assumes that many people use their cell phones while walking on the sidewalks, an assumption that needs to be refuted by evidence before such a ban could fairly proceed.
Finally, this argument is based heavily in the idea that since the cell phone ban worked in Middletown, it will also work in Centerville. This argument is flawed as it assumes a gross similarity between the two towns, and fails to provide evidence proving this to be true. We have no way to tell whether these two towns bear any ressemblance to one another; population sizes, demographics of these populations, physical attributes of the cityscapes, and town geography of each all play a role in determining whether a cell phone ban would actually work in the respective towns. For example, the population of Middletown might be exponentially smaller than that of Centerville, making enforcing the ban much more effective. Or perhaps there was far less sidewalk crime to begin with in Middletown. Until sufficiant evidence is provided that the two towns are similar on many terms, the argument falls flat.
While the author's argument serves as the beginning of a solid idea, ultimately it is based on little more than shakey assumptions. Evidence supporting these assumptions, proving them to be true, would be necessary before considering establishing a sidewalk cell phone ban in Centerville.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2206 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.848 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.688 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.385 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 469, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
...idence required before such an argument could possibly be considered valid. To begin, thi...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 316, Rule ID: ECONOMICAL_ECONOMIC[1]
Message: Did you mean 'economic' (=connected with economy)?
Suggestion: economic
...oor sidewalk conditions, or the current economical situation in their town. Before suggest...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 11, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...he argument falls flat. While the authors argument serves as the beginning of a s...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, however, if, so, well, while, for example, as a result, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2269.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98681318681 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78321787625 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.483516483516 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 727.2 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.3603373723 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.055555556 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2777777778 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.0651677742026 0.218282227539 30% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0277339668591 0.0743258471296 37% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0230709845839 0.0701772020484 33% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0451414258132 0.128457276422 35% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0129602125259 0.0628817314937 21% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.96 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.