The following recommendation appeared in a memo from the mayor of the town of Hopewell.
"Two years ago, the nearby town of Ocean View built a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. During the past two years, tourism in Ocean View has increased, new businesses have opened there, and Ocean View's tax revenues have risen by 30 percent. Therefore, the best way to improve Hopewell's economy—and generate additional tax revenues—is to build a golf course and resort hotel similar to those in Ocean View."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The given topic represents the recommendation given by a mayor to build a golf course and resort hotel in order to improve the town's economy. His recommendation includes building a resort hotel and a golf course similar to that of a neighbouring town. It is understandable that the mayor intends to develop his town, but the reasoning he has presented is inadequate and is rife with loopholes.
Firstly, the mayor goes two years back to explain the condition of a nearby town, but the condition which existed years ago cannot be used to predict what's gonna happen this year. The interest of the public and the trend of that year and the interest and the trend of this year could be completely different.
Secondly, he is talking about a single nearby town which applied similar measures that the mayor is recommending. But, there can be many other towns too, which may have failed to generate revenue even after building many golf courses. Here, he has made another unwarranted assumption that Ocean View closely represents his own town, and so economy trends would also be similar after following them, but this could be inaccurate. The people in Ocean View could be rich people who favour golf, but people in his town may not be so rich and may prefer some other kind of entertainment.
The mayor has presented data that the tax revenues have increased in Ocean View in the past two years, but it is not sure that the increase in revenue was because of this single factor of the golf course. The increase in revenue could be because of new businesses that opened there or maybe they would have built other buildings or come up with newer policies. Furthermore, the source of the 30% data is also not mentioned, which warrants that it could be ill sourced.
Finally, we see that the mayor has failed to do the resource and cost analysis of the project that he so fondly recommends. A golf course needs lots of space and building it along with a resort hotel is definitely an expensive affair. The revenue which it may generate may not be adequate to cover the cost of the golf course itself, in which case, the mayor's recommendation would be an abject failure.
With all these shortcomings in the mayor's argument, it is clear that his recommendation is ill-advised. In order to make his recommendation more cogent, he should analyze the verisimilitude between his town and Hopewell, and study other aspects of Hopewell which would have caused the increase in its revenue. He should also study other towns which would have adopted similar measures.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- OK.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 442 350
No. of Characters: 2068 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.585 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.679 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.57 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.556 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.776 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.622 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.173 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 128, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'towns'' or 'town's'?
Suggestion: towns'; town's
...nd resort hotel in order to improve the towns economy. His recommendation includes bu...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 151, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: what's
...ted years ago cannot be used to predict whats gonna happen this year. The interest of...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 206, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... this single factor of the golf course. The increase in revenue could be because of...
^^^
Line 9, column 354, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'mayors'' or 'mayor's'?
Suggestion: mayors'; mayor's
... golf course itself, in which case, the mayors recommendation would be an abject failu...
^^^^^^
Line 11, column 36, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'mayors'' or 'mayor's'?
Suggestion: mayors'; mayor's
.... With all these shortcomings in the mayors argument, it is clear that his recommen...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, kind of, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2122.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 442.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.80090497738 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58517132086 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64814921271 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445701357466 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 657.0 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.4234356791 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.888888889 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5555555556 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.0 5.70786347227 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.266818157289 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0880593898749 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0568356231271 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.136462359681 0.128457276422 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0441888885796 0.0628817314937 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.86 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.72 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.