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.
In this argument, the author is of the opinion that the town council of Balmer Island, during summer season, should limit the number of mopeds rented by different moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day. The author believes that such a measure would drastically reduce the annual percentage of moped accidents on Balmer Island. At first glance, this argument appears convincing. However, closer examination indicates that the argument is severely flawed and hence illogical.
Firstly, the author merely assumes that the rise in population during summer months would directly result in increased number of moped accidents. Although an increased population may indirectly increase the probability of accidents, it may not necessarily be true. In short, the author’s assumption lacks cogency.
Secondly, the author states that Balmer Island moped rental companies should limit the number of moped rentals to 25 per day, rather than the present number of 50 per day. This statement does not provide any logical reasoning as to why the number should be 25 per day. Why can’t it be 20 or 10? Also, this statement does not explain how reducing the number to 25 per day would bring down the percentage of annual moped accidents to 50 percent.
Thirdly, the author makes his statement based on observations about neighbouring island of Seaville. Although reducing moped rentals to 25 per day may have worked for Seaville Island, it does not necessarily indicate that such a measure would work for Balmer Island. This is merely a bold assumption.
Lastly, the author does not provide other relevant details about Balmer Island with respect to traffic sense. It is quite likely that residents of Balmer Island have excellent road sense and adhere to necessary traffic safety regulations. In short, the author’s claim is vague and far-fetched.
To conclude, this argument is unconvincing because of poor reasoning. To strengthen it, the author should provide well-reasoned, detailed explanation about his assumptions, taking into account facts and figures.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 328 350
No. of Characters: 1688 1500
No. of Different Words: 162 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.256 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.146 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.609 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 88 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.753 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5