Hospital statistics regarding people who go to the emergency room after roller-skating accidents indicate the need for more protective equipment. Within that group of people, 75 percent of those who had accidents in streets or parking lots had not been wearing any protective clothing (helmets, knee pads, etc.) or any light-reflecting material (clip-on lights, glow-in-the-dark wrist pads,etc.). Clearly, the statistics indicate that by investing in high-quality protective gear and reflective equipment, roller skaters will greatly reduce their risk of being severely injured in an accident.
Write a response in which you examine the unstated assumptions of the argument above and explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The crux of the argument is flawed and I can spot numerous logical fallacies in the above given argument. I would like to enumerate my viewpoints which will weaken the same in the following paragraphs.
Firstly, the opening statement starts with a bold claim without any solid evidence to back it up. Any person who can afford roller-skates is bound to try out roller-skating and it is not always the professionals who do it. It could have been the case where most of the people injured after roller-skating or involved in such accidents were inexperienced and new people to try it out. And because they were new to this roller-skating, they might not have had adequate knowledge about the importance of protective gear. This very doubt weakens the claim when it indicates the need for 'more' protective equipment. A modicum of knowledge on the usage of existing protective equipment might have prevented those accidents reported by hospital. Also, it is important to note here that the hospital statistics does not clearly include if the people who ended up in emergency room after such accidents were actually professionals or inexperienced newbies.
Secondly, when the statistics brings out a huge number in the form of 75 percent, they also include the absence of light reflecting material, along with protective gear to support their claim. But, when taken a close look, even if an inexperienced person dons both protective gear and light reflecting material like clip-on lights, is it a surety that he/she will not end up in an accident? The reason for them being involved in such accidents might very well be attributed to the fact that they still haven't learned how to skate. So, a fully protected fledgling might still have to visit the emergency room. Also, what good will a light reflecting material do anyway? And how is it intricately linked to accidents? One might argue that it comes handy during the night time, but this essentially throws the entire blame on the usual riders on road. Wearing proper protective gear and a good sense of skating would be really helpful in reducing that hospital statistics.
Finally, the manner in which they made a claim and concluded is completely flawed, partly due to the same reasons stated above. 'Increased investments in high-quality protective gear and reflective equipment will greatly reduce the risk of being severely injured in an accident', this begs the question - Will every person who skates adhere to the rules and wear these? Well, to be honest, no one knows. And the given reason is not flawed for just this one reason. Previously, it was maintained that majority of people who were involved in accidents were found not wearing any protective gear. This has nothing to do with investment in high quality equipment- for all you know, one would be wasting their money in such investment. Instead of all this, promoting the need for adhering to rules and wearing protective gear would do wonders in decreasing such skating accidents.
I would like to wrap up by saying that only when such above posed questions are answered, backed up with proper evidences, the given argument will hold true.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 531 350
No. of Characters: 2571 1500
No. of Different Words: 260 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.8 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.842 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.031 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.48 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.266 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.458 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 491, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...very well be attributed to the fact that they still havent learned how to skate. ...
^^
Line 5, column 504, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: haven't
...attributed to the fact that they still havent learned how to skate. So, a fully prote...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 426, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t, no one knows. And the given reason is not flawed for just this one reason. Pre...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, anyway, but, finally, first, firstly, if, look, really, second, secondly, so, still, well, you know
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2641.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 529.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99243856333 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79583152331 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73392840845 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 271.0 204.123752495 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.512287334594 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 819.0 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.546196625 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.64 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.16 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.6 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.277501134466 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0726039286093 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0675768388026 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.124034208211 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.124481601137 0.0628817314937 198% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.