When Stanley Park first opened, it was the largest, most heavily used public park in town. It is still the largest park, but it is no longer heavily used. Video cameras mounted in the park's parking lots last month revealed the park's drop in popularity: the recordings showed an average of only 50 cars per day. In contrast, tiny Carlton Park in the heart of the business district is visited by more than 150 people on a typical weekday. An obvious difference is that Carlton Park, unlike Stanley Park, provides ample seating. Thus, if Stanley Park is ever to be as popular with our citizens as Carlton Park, the town will obviously need to provide more benches, thereby converting some of the unused open areas into spaces suitable for socializing.
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 proposes to revive the tag of most heavily used public park to Stanley park by installing more benches in the park, which had been the obvious difference seen with Carlton Park to make unused open areas into sociable spaces. However, the author supports his conclusions with assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.
First of all, the writer presumes, without evidence that, the drop in popularity is linked to only the average no of cars parked in the parking lot. However, this may not be the case. It is possible that more people may commute through public transport to Stanley Park and parking lot cars may not be the ideal measure. It is also possible that Carlton Park, attracting a lot of visitors to come by car than Stanley Park and the total visitors coming by walk or biking may be less. If either of these scenarios is true, then the author’s contention that installing more benches to attract people does not hold water.
Second of all, is the drop in popularity of Stanley park only linked to people preferring to go over to other parks? Perhaps the proclivity of people to visit parks to spend leisure time has aged where people with the advent of social media may have more alternate forms of spending time. Even if we consider otherwise, the drop in popularity of Stanley is possible as it was first opened which may have attracted a lot of people then but due to it being old, people are preferring to go over newly constructed parks. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the writer’s claim that installing more benches to attract people to Stanley Park is not persuasive.
Finally, the writer claims that providing benches would attract more people to Stanley Park just like Carlton Park. It is likely that people not visit parks to only sit all the time. May be people prefer to jog and just enjoy the greenery by a small pond in a park. The amenities provided by a park may matter the most for a person to visit the park. Carlton Park’s popularity may be due to this and not linked to the sociable places it has due to more number of benches. If this is true, then the author’s assertion to increase the benches to increase the visitors in Stanley Park is invalid, and needs greater examination.
In conclusion, the town providing more benches will make Stanley Park as popular as Carlton. However, as it stands now, the argument relies on three unfounded assumptions that render its conclusion unpersuasive at best and specious at worst. Thus the author needs to provide additional evidence on 3 fronts: parked cars being the measure of visitors of a park, seating being the primary factor for a person to choose a park, people’s preferences to a park with time.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 482 350
No. of Characters: 2230 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.686 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.627 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.477 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.1 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.916 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.9 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 112, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...opularity is linked to only the average no of cars parked in the parking lot. Howe...
^^
Line 5, column 468, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...le then but due to it being old, people are preferring to go over newly constructed parks. If ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 243, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...rsuasive at best and specious at worst. Thus the author needs to provide additional ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, thus, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2301.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 482.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77385892116 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68556276237 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.55947403845 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.435684647303 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 707.4 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4274975086 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.05 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.8 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.428293512943 0.218282227539 196% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.170536154213 0.0743258471296 229% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.121188032144 0.0701772020484 173% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.297950608579 0.128457276422 232% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0416981111436 0.0628817314937 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.68 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.