Several charitable organizations in Pleasantville provide opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. These organizations have a great need for volunteers, but in recent years, the number of teenage volunteers has significantly declined. The Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. Teachers, parents, and other community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. Requiring high-school students to engage in community service would provide much-needed assistance to worthy local charities and would also help young people understand the importance of giving back to their community. For this reason, the Pleasantville School Board should institute a program requiring students of Pleasantville High School to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
The author of the sentence above provides arguments that are generally not well-supported and that can be easily be refuted. As a matter of fact, at least three logical problems can immediately be noticed.
Firstly, it may not be true the assumption that forcing young students to do communitarian works will have as a certain consequence the increment of volunteering engagements.
Moreover, not only the desired effects are unlikely to be achieved, but also this practice could lead students to dislike this kind of activities, since they would feel this experience more as an obligation than as a personal vocation to help their society.
In addition, it is worth noting that the author does not mention anything about the real opportunities which are offered by the charitable organization. Actually, he has made no mention about the types of work offered and rules that must be respected by participants. For instance, the volunteering program could have been changed in the last years and it could have become unsuitable for students in terms of number of active hours required and type of mansions proposed.
Last, even if the author argues that the number of teenager’s volunteers has declined during the last years, he does not report any information about the number of people who is currently in this range of age. To put it in another way: the plunge of the number of young inhabitants of Pleasantville could have led to a justified drop out of teenager volunteers.
In conclusion, if more general data would have been reported and if evidence of the fact that by adding some mandatory hours, the participation at volunteering activities will be increased, the author thesis would have been well-proved.
However, examining all the various angles and factors involved, it is clear that, since his arguments are not totally correct, it could not be proven that the adding of this activity will surely lead to a wider participation in volunteering activities.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 324 350
No. of Characters: 1611 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.243 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.972 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.862 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 112 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 88 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.455 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.099 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.818 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.697 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.121 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 191, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[1]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...ce they would feel this experience more as an obligation than as a personal vocati...
^^
Line 10, column 37, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had been'?
Suggestion: had been
... In conclusion, if more general data would have been reported and if evidence of the fact th...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, so, well, at least, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, kind of, as a matter of fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1664.0 2260.96107784 74% => OK
No of words: 324.0 441.139720559 73% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.13580246914 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.24264068712 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97027775068 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.558641975309 0.468620217663 119% => OK
syllable_count: 522.0 705.55239521 74% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 19.7664670659 56% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 56.3125868525 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 151.272727273 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.4545454545 23.324526521 126% => OK
Discourse Markers: 14.0909090909 5.70786347227 247% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.172195932906 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0630934421138 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0608243575778 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0738114226218 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0633847898894 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.5 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.22 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.