"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
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 argument here claims that the reduced number of shoppers in Central Plaza is due to the increased number of skateboard users in plaza. The author has made a very vague conclusion by linking the number of shoppers to skateboarders without providing any supporting arguments. In order to prohibit skateboarding in the plaza, it is necessary to delve deeper and look at the sales of the plaza and vandalism.
The argument has not provided any details about the quality and pricing of the goods and services sold. In a span of two years, it is possible that the quality of the good of store owners has heavily degraded, hence customers prefer other Plaza with goods of better quality at lower prices. The argument has also not mentioned any details about the inflation in the pricing of goods and services offered. The store owners in order to increase their profits might have increased the price of goods exorbitantly. Thus losing business and customers to other plazas.
The statement has not provided any information regarding the development of any new plaza is nearby which can be a possible reason for reduced sales. It is highly possible that other plazas provide better services hence drawing more customers. The plaza might not be providing good infrastructure to shop and store owners, which could have lead to shutting down of a good number of shops. On the other hand, it is possible that the customers find all the goods and services at reasonable rates under one roof in plazas that have developed nearby. The author needs to provide complete information regarding the number of shops shut down, sales of the plaza, and quality of services offered.
The author mentions that the plaza has seen increased vandalism and litter. But at no point, the statement mentions how this could have been the result of an increased number of skateboarders. Increased vandalism and littering could be the result of mismanagement and unkept stores. The author needs to provide more details about the relation between vandalism and skateboarders.
The argument has been very quick to jump to conclusions and predictions that if the skateboarding is prohibited the business in Central Plaza will return to its previous heights. In order to bring back it's business and customers Central Plaza needs to do a deep inspection of it's working and services provided. The author needs to answer all these questions relating to sales and management. Only then an unbiased conclusion can be reached.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 21 15
No. of Words: 413 350
No. of Characters: 2043 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.508 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.947 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.647 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.854 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, look, regarding, so, then, thus, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2086.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05084745763 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71438615025 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.426150121065 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 644.4 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.5889714869 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.3333333333 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6666666667 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.42857142857 5.70786347227 60% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.257841244766 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0835762880252 0.0743258471296 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0872851309271 0.0701772020484 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157356081256 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0883968990707 0.0628817314937 141% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.