Traffic here in Waymarsh is becoming a problem Although just three years ago a state traffic survey showed that the typical driving commuter took 20 minutes to get to work the commute now takes closer to 40 minutes according to the survey just completed M

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"Traffic here in Waymarsh is becoming a problem. Although just three years ago a state traffic survey showed that the typical driving commuter took 20 minutes to get to work, the commute now takes closer to 40 minutes, according to the survey just completed. Members of the town council already have suggested more road building to address the problem, but as well as being expensive, the new construction will surely disrupt some of our residential neighborhoods. It would be better to follow the example of the nearby city of Garville. Last year Garville implemented a policy that rewards people who share rides to work, giving them coupons for free gas. Pollution levels in Garville have dropped since the policy was implemented, and people from Garville tell me that commuting times have fallen considerably. There is no reason why a policy like Garville's shouldn't work equally well in Waymarsh."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

The author recommends that Waymarsh should adopt similar strategy like Garville’s that rewards free gas coupon to the people who share their ride to work. The author has come to this conclusion on the basis of the decreased pollution level in Garville after the adoption of the policy and the statement of some of the peoples from Garville who have said that their commuting time has dropped after the implementation of the policy. Though the argument seems plausible at the first sight, it is found to be rife with holes and flaws on closer inspection. The author needs to provide evidences regarding following issues in order to evaluate the argument.

First of all, the author naively assumes that traffic in the Waymardh is the only cause for the time delay while commuting to work. However, this assumption falls short given the lack of evidences. It is possible that there could be some other factors for this increased commute time in Waymarsh—perhaps the city government has implemented a policy to decrease speed limit during the past three years, or it could be that the road in Waymarsh has undergone a severe damage resulting in numerous cracks and potholes in the roads since last three years. The author should consider all these possibilities for the increased commute time in Waymarsh before coming to the conclusion.

Secondly, the author fails to provide reliable information regarding the geographical distribution of the two cities, and prematurely assumes that the circumstances drawn from one city could be used for the generalization of the other city. However, this assumption might not hold true. It is possible that Waymarsh has undergone densely populated area since last three years due to the establishment of numbers of schools and colleges, hospitals, and other infrastructure, or the region has developed into highly tourist area since last three years which could be the main reason for the increased commute time in Waymarsh.

Thirdly, the author fails to mention reliable information regarding the workplaces of the people of both the cities in order to analyze whether the policy is feasible to the people of Waymarsh too. It is possible that majority of the people of Garville could work in a nearby areas so that sharing the rides could be feasible for them, whereas the people of Waymarsh could work at different areas and so sharing the ride could be a difficult for them. It is for the same reason that the people of Waymarsh could be reluctant to share their ride while commuting to work.

Furthermore, nowhere in the passage it is mentioned about the extent of the pollution that has been decreased after the implementation of the policy. Further, we are not known about the type of pollution that has been decreased. Maybe the city government has implemented the policy in Garville to conduct environmental sanitation program each week since last year, or the city has grown green belt which can be the possible reasons for the decreased pollution in Garville which have nothing to do with the policy. Also, the author fails to provide reliable data information about the number of people who said that commuting time in Garville city has decreased after the implementation of the policy in order to evaluate the argument.

In sum, though the argument seems plausible, it lacks persuasiveness due to its reliance upon several unwarranted assumptions. The author should provide additional convincing evidences in order to support the argument. Unless the author provides such evidences, the argument remains highly dubious and cannot be reasonably established.

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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 591 350
No. of Characters: 2968 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.931 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.022 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.686 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.143 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.17 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.59 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.136 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5