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 stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
this argument is too weak to be convincing, relying on the correlation of two incomplete statistics. correlation does not always imply causation, though it might be tempting to believe it is. Here, the implication is that protective gear will reduce the risk of accident. it assumes that lack of protective gear is the main cause of severe injury in roller skates, which is not necessarily true under any circumstance.
First, it claims that 75 percent of roller-skaters who have had accidents in streets or parking lots were not wearing any protective gear. this says nothing about the cause or the degree of severity of injuries. Some may have been hit by vehicles in broad daylight, in which case neither padding nor reflective material would have saved a skater. Common sense dictates that padding will reduce your risk of being injured, but in extreme cases, padding may do very little.
The argument also ignores the fact that roller-skating is something of an “extreme sport.” while the injured may have been injured with roller skates on the street or in a parking lot, the injuries may have resulted from the skater's predilection for performing dangerous tricks. Often, these tricks involve careful balancing on thin objects while moving at high speed, and it is questionable how much padding would protect a skater. one would need to compare this to the statistics of injuries occurring in skate parks.
Lastly, the last 25 percent of emergency room cases of this type are also ignored. What would be useful are the types of injuries incurred on these people as a basis of comparison. they may all have been injured so severely that they are forced into extended hospital stays. By the same argument as given above, 100% of all skaters wearing protective gear suffered extreme injuries, thus it is imperative that skaters not wear any such accessories at all.
The use of statistics is a shaky way of bolstering an already decent argument. There are too many implications derived from the data the way it is presented. As such, the numbers are an indirect method of supporting the need for more protective accessories in skating. The argument could be improved by providing more statistics detailing the nature of injuries and a better representative group with which to compare data. one simply cannot compare injuries caused by carelessness or recklessness as opposed to general accidents, at least not statistically, as carelessness will improve the chances of injury. As it stands, the argument has too many holes with which it can be torn apart.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 15 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2089 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.904 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.717 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.695 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.582 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
this argument is too weak to be convincing, ...
^^^^
Line 1, column 102, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Correlation
...rrelation of two incomplete statistics. correlation does not always imply causation, though...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 273, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
... gear will reduce the risk of accident. it assumes that lack of protective gear is...
^^
Line 3, column 140, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...s were not wearing any protective gear. this says nothing about the cause or the deg...
^^^^
Line 3, column 222, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'has'.
Suggestion: has
...egree of severity of injuries. Some may have been hit by vehicles in broad daylight,...
^^^^
Line 5, column 236, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'skaters'' or 'skater's'?
Suggestion: skaters'; skater's
...the injuries may have resulted from the skaters predilection for performing dangerous t...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 444, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: One
...ow much padding would protect a skater. one would need to compare this to the stati...
^^^
Line 7, column 182, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: They
... these people as a basis of comparison. they may all have been injured so severely t...
^^^^
Line 9, column 425, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: One
...ative group with which to compare data. one simply cannot compare injuries caused b...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, lastly, may, so, thus, while, as to, at least
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2163.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07746478873 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8287242112 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 236.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.553990610329 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 682.2 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.7748576345 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.0 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2857142857 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.178194272658 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0479831012068 0.0743258471296 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0735097787442 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0907136718902 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0435836429427 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.