The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
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.
While this proposal seems logical and makes some sense, many of the assumptions it rests on are unwarranted and not backed by proper evidence. It may be the case that limiting moped rentals reduces moped accidents, but this letter to the editor does not provide sufficient evidence to make a strong case for this strategy.
One key assumption is that reducing rentals of mopeds will curtail moped accidents significantly. This is not necessarily true. It could be that most people on the island own mopeds and do not rent them. It could also be the case that moped renting centers rarely reach their limit of 50 moped rentals per day, meaning that capping renting at 25 per day will not have as great an effect. Additionally, the assumption that cutting rentals in half will cut accident rates in half is completely unwarranted and not backed by any evidence whatsoever. If there was clear evidence that there is a linear relationship between rental rates and accident rates, this suggestion would be warranted, but no such evidence is provided.
Another key assumption is that a policy that was enacted on Seaville Island will have the same effect on Balmer Island. It is possible that Seaville has much more moped renters than owners and therefore limits on rentals has more of an effect. Additionally, the author says only that the policy enacted in Seaville is similar to the one they suggest, not providing any specifics on how similar or what the similarities were. Therefore, it could be the case that the policy in Seaville restricts moped use through limiting the number of rental locations or limiting the number of mopeds a family can own/rent. Because it is not made clear the ways in which the two policies are alike, suggesting that the policies will have similar results is unwarranted.
Lastly, although it is possible that moped rental reduction will decrease moped accidents, it may inadvertently cause a rise in other types of transportation accidents. If moped rentals are limited, people may rent bikes instead, leading to more bike accidents. If the goal is to reduce accidents of all kinds, it is unclear whether a restriction of moped rentals will have this effect. It may be more advantageous to provide a moped lane on streets (assuming there isn’t one already), set up better defined moped traffic patterns, or require a moped safe-driving session before rental. These solutions offer potential ways to reduce accidents without the inadvertently driving them to find other, potentially equally dangerous, forms of transportation.
So even if cutting moped rentals will reduce moped accidents, it is unclear whether this will result in safer streets, which is presumably the goal of the policy suggested. Clearly, the suggested policy is not only littered with unwarranted assumptions, but it also boasts a solution that may have inadvertant negative consequences.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, lastly, may, so, therefore, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.5258426966 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.4196629213 153% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 14.8657303371 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 11.3162921348 150% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 33.0505617978 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 42.0 58.6224719101 72% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 12.9106741573 108% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2428.0 2235.4752809 109% => OK
No of words: 475.0 442.535393258 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11157894737 5.05705443957 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.55969084622 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80324307636 2.79657885939 100% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 215.323595506 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.484210526316 0.4932671777 98% => OK
syllable_count: 774.0 704.065955056 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 6.24550561798 192% => OK
Article: 3.0 4.99550561798 60% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 3.10617977528 193% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 0.0 4.38483146067 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 20.2370786517 99% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 23.0359550562 100% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.6948474643 60.3974514979 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.4 118.986275619 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.75 23.4991977007 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.4 5.21951772744 46% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 10.2758426966 19% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 5.13820224719 272% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.136826758862 0.243740707755 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0491769605207 0.0831039109588 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0439158167436 0.0758088955206 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0789980705941 0.150359130593 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.022352836843 0.0667264976115 33% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.1392134831 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.8420337079 99% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.1743820225 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.1639044944 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.38706741573 103% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 100.480337079 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 11.8971910112 67% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.2143820225 100% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.