A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of accidents caused by bicycling has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus there is clearly a call for the government to strive to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents by launching an education program that concentrates on the factors other than helmet use that are necessary for bicycle safety."
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.
The author of the article makes an appealing yet spurious argument that the government should focus more on educating bicyclists about bicycle safety and less on encouraging them to wear helmets. This argument of the author’s is contingent upon such assumptions as the unidirectional causal relation between the increased number of bicyclists wearing helmets in the past decade and the increased reportage of bicycle-related accidents. Further, the author assumes that the increased number of bicycle accidents can be ascribed to bicyclists feeling complacently safer for wearing helmets, thereby causing them to take more risks. The author, however, rarely makes a cogent case, for the assumptions that he hinges upon are rife with holes.
The author first draws upon statistics to connect the increased number of bicyclists and the increased number of bicycle accidents. The assumption pertinent to the causality between the forty-five percent increase of bicycles over the past decade and the increased two hundred percent of bicycle-remelted accidents, however, is rife with holes; to be more specific, the author blatantly assumes that the parallel of two sets of increased trends is causally related; however, the comparison based on the statistics is not outright accurate since over the past ten years, the entire population may have increased exponentially as well, thereby followed by more people or bicyclists reporting the accidents. Provided that the percentage, instead of the number, of the bicycle-related accident per person were lower compared with that in ten years ago, if true, we could safety assume riding bicycles with helmets on would still be safe. If the percentage of the number of population and the number of accidents ten years ago and today were provided for proper comparison, the author’s assumption regarding the statistical relation would be more sound.
Further, the author attributes the increased bicycle accidents to bicyclists caring less and taking more risks; however, such an assumption is unwarranted, since there might be a host of other variables that might contribute to more accidents. One implication is that perhaps over the past ten years, the road conditions of the city have become worse, such as more bumpy roads or roads with more hole, and the government fails to immediately address the issue. Another plausible factor is that maybe it is the car drivers who are the culprits. Perhaps car drivers are not trained rigorously and they possess poor driving skills and are inept to handle emergencies. Or one needs to probe into where the research studies were conducted. Perhaps they were done in bicycling sites, such as slippery roads or precipitate slopes, where the likelihood of accidents is high. The possibility of accidents is high enough to accumulate into records of accidents. Whatever the case is, bicyclists are hardly to blame and they might be victims.
Lastly, the author assumes that in order to effectively reduce the number of injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should launch an education program to instruct people about bicycle safety. This assumption cannot be foolproof since the author does not substantiate his claim by showcasing the efficacy of the government’s education program. Besides, perhaps ten years ago, most of the bicyclists were senior people, who preferred to ride bicycles slowly, whereas recent years have witnessed more and more youthful bicyclists who relish speedy riding. If they are told by the government not to wear helmets and paying heed to the safety only, the consequence will still be severe since young bicyclists might simply “hear” the advice but not adhere to it. Asking them to wear helmets can instead be more helpful.
All told, with all the stated or unstated assumptions involved in the newsletter—proving the disability of helmets for bicyclists and convincing the government to offer bicycle-safety lecture rather than encouraging people to wear helmets, the author fails to consider deeper connection and the causal relation among these assumptions to make his position unassailable. The author would have to make a more well-rounded research; otherwise, imprudent recommendation might be misleading and cause even more severe problems in the long run.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK, but it is too long.
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
No. of Words: 672 350
the introduction and conclusion can be shorter too.
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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: 24 15
No. of Words: 672 350
No. of Characters: 3547 1500
No. of Different Words: 289 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.091 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.278 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.802 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 276 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 206 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 146 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 109 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.93 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.151 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 133, 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.
... increased number of bicycle accidents. The assumption pertinent to the causality b...
^^^
Line 3, column 802, Rule ID: WERE_VBB[1]
Message: Did you mean 'where' or 'we'?
Suggestion: where; we
...the bicycle-related accident per person were lower compared with that in ten years a...
^^^^
Line 5, column 352, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...onditions of the city have become worse, such as more bumpy roads or roads with m...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, regarding, so, still, well, whereas, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 92.0 55.5748502994 166% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3657.0 2260.96107784 162% => OK
No of words: 671.0 441.139720559 152% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45007451565 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.08956458786 4.56307096286 112% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98276153001 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 303.0 204.123752495 148% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451564828614 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 1143.9 705.55239521 162% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 109.56547619 57.8364921388 189% => OK
Chars per sentence: 159.0 119.503703932 133% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.1739130435 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95652173913 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.215114779652 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.064736626403 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.053806071432 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128182897785 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0534893001609 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.58 48.3550499002 69% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.92 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 166.0 98.500998004 169% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.