The following is a petition to the city council of Centerville:
"Over the past three years, there has been a marked increase in cases of 'sidewalk rage,' similar to the irrational anger drivers experience on the road, but instead among sidewalk walkers. The result is an increase in assaults, property damage, and disruptions of normal pedestrian traffic. In order to address this growing problem, the council must ban cell phone use on sidewalks. Not only do people texting or using their phones slow down pedestrian traffic, but they are also more likely to walk into the road or bump into other walkers. Children are especially vulnerable because they are too short to be easily seen. Middletown passed such a ban and not only have they heard no complaints, but the reported incidents of sidewalk crime has gone down significantly."
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.
A petition to the city council of Centerville states that banning cell phone use on sidewalks is the only way to address 'sidewalk rage'. The petition argues that usage of cell phones leads to collisions amongst people, especially children who are too short to be seen. It also states that a similar ban was imposed in Middletown, which led to reduced sidewalk crime rates and zero complaints. The vailidty of the argument presented by the petition is subject to the availability of three key evidences.
Firstly, it needs to be clarified whether cell phones are the only cause of sidewalk rage in Centervill. It is possible that sidewalks in Centerville are in bad condition, and this forces commuters to take tortuous paths along the sidewalk. This extra effort to walk can increase the annoyance of pedestrians. Another possible explanation is that sidewalks are too small to accomadate all the commuters, which in turn leads to many more people bumping into one another. If either of the above are true, the conclusion drawn by the petition is weakened.
Secondly, the petition needs to make clear in what ways are the sidewalks in Middletown and Centerville the same. The petition prematurely assumes that the environment in Middletown and Centerville are similiar, and a similar ban to that in Middletown will solve the crisis in Centerville. However, this might not be the case. Perhaps sidewalks in Centerville are generally used by gang members and the major reason for sidewalk rage is a dispute between the gang members. In such a case banning mobile phones would not have any significant difference to the situation in Centerville.
Another factor which the petition needs to address, is the reliability of reports that indicate the reduction in sidewalk crime. It is possible that the report is an informal account by an official who monitored the region for a very short period of time during which the sidewalk was not used a lot. Furthermore, the report could have been taken during the holiday season, during which the majority of the residents of Middletown go on vacation. In either case the reliability of the reports comes into scrutiny, and thus casting doubt on the argument presented by the petition.
In conclusion, the argument presented by the petition as it stands is flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the petition provides the above mentioned evidences, only then is it possible to fully evaluate the validity of the argument.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 412 350
No. of Characters: 2035 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.505 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.939 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.736 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.435 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.313 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 241, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...o monitored the region for a very short period of time during which the sidewalk was not used ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 486, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'reports'' or 'report's'?
Suggestion: reports'; report's
.... In either case the reliability of the reports comes into scrutiny, and thus casting d...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2086.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 412.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06310679612 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50530610838 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83432381003 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.485436893204 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 32.3355841141 57.8364921388 56% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.3 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.75 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
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: 0.24359913044 0.218282227539 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0746652743469 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0597585108565 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.132960771896 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0642319842227 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.