“A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, howev

The author in the given argument opines that government should take an educational initiative to inform users about factors other than not wearing helmets that may lead to bicycle accidents. He buttresses his argument by stating two independent studies that were performed over a time period of two years. In one of the studies, it is observed that almost 80 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets as opposed to 35 percent ten years ago. Another study claims that during the same ten year period accidents caused by bicycling increased 200 percent. At first glance, the author's argument seems to be convincing. However, on further scrutiny one may realize that a number of questions have been left unanswered which make the argument weak and unreasonable.

Firstly, the two studies mentioned by the author were conducted independently. No correlation whatsoever has been mentioned by the author. He has also failed to provide essential details regarding the data set considered. Were the studies conducted for the same nation? It has been stated that the study was conducted nationwide, however, the information collected purely depends on the inputs of the probity of the person in question. It might be possible that since people today feel morally obliged to wear helmets while riding bicycles, they falsely answered "yes" when asked if they wear helmets when riding in contrast to ten years ago.

Moreover, the number of people surveyed has not been mentioned in any of the studies. It is possible that a different number of people were questioned. It is possible that a large number of people used bicycles ten years ago as compared to now. Since, more people were using bicycles ten years ago, the proportion of people actually wearing helmets might be less. It is possible that the number of riders wearing helmets has remained the same however the number of bicyclists have reduced thus taking the proportion of people wearing helmets up as compared to ten years ago.Less number of people using bicycles and most wearing helmets doesn't mean that bicyclists have grown complacent. And since the statistics reported are mere proportions, the credibility of these data cannot be ascertained. Moreover, the lack of wearing helmets by the bicyclists may have actually caused the accidents.

Lastly, the author has failed to mention the traffic conditions while these surveys were performed. It is possible that ten years ago the penetration of automobiles was much less and people preferred to use bicycles. Also, it is possible that no separate lanes for automobiles and cyclists have been created which creates accident-prone conditions. Thus, it might be the case that it is not the bicyclists who are responsible for the accidents but the reckless vehicle drivers. Increase in accidents can also be attributed to the traffic conditions. It is possible that traffic is much heavier now in comparison to ten years ago that may have led to more accidents rather than the bicyclists becoming complacent.

In a nutshell, even though the author has stated several convincing premises to underscore his argument, he fails to provide answers to several crucial questions. He fails to address many essential and pertinent features such as the quantification of the population surveyed, whether traffic conditions were taken into account and other vehicles that may have been indirectly responsible for the accidents. Had the author provided answers to these, his argument would have been more convincing.

Votes
Average: 8.3 (1 vote)
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 583, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...eased 200 percent. At first glance, the authors argument seems to be convincing. Howeve...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 173, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...le were questioned. It is possible that a large number of people used bicycles ten years ago as c...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 575, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Less
...helmets up as compared to ten years ago.Less number of people using bicycles and mos...
^^^^
Line 5, column 637, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...using bicycles and most wearing helmets doesnt mean that bicyclists have grown complac...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 41, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...Lastly, the author has failed to mention the traffic conditions while these surve...
^^

Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'also', 'but', 'first', 'firstly', 'however', 'if', 'lastly', 'may', 'moreover', 'regarding', 'so', 'thus', 'while', 'in contrast', 'such as', 'in contrast to']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.223491027732 0.25644967241 87% => OK
Verbs: 0.216965742251 0.15541462614 140% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0734094616639 0.0836205057962 88% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0668841761827 0.0520304965353 129% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0326264274062 0.0272364105082 120% => OK
Prepositions: 0.114192495922 0.125424944231 91% => OK
Participles: 0.0978792822186 0.0416121511921 235% => Less participles wanted.
Conjunctions: 2.76768210205 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0309951060359 0.026700313972 116% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.0929853181077 0.113004496875 82% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0195758564437 0.0255425247493 77% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0163132137031 0.0127820249294 128% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3522.0 2731.13054187 129% => OK
No of words: 565.0 446.07635468 127% => OK
Chars per words: 6.23362831858 6.12365571057 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87542086881 4.57801047555 106% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.41592920354 0.378187486979 110% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.329203539823 0.287650121315 114% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.221238938053 0.208842608468 106% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.143362831858 0.135150697306 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76768210205 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Unique words: 255.0 207.018472906 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451327433628 0.469332199767 96% => OK
Word variations: 53.5801680067 52.1807786196 103% => OK
How many sentences: 28.0 20.039408867 140% => OK
Sentence length: 20.1785714286 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.6981779368 57.7814097925 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.785714286 141.986410481 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1785714286 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.607142857143 0.724660767414 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 3.58251231527 140% => OK
Readability: 53.0989254109 51.9672348444 102% => OK
Elegance: 1.37628865979 1.8405768891 75% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.379628170724 0.441005458295 86% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.134308579967 0.135418324435 99% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.109436430262 0.0829849096947 132% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.517159244027 0.58762219726 88% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.120468507171 0.147661913831 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.135954786265 0.193483328276 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.112722707708 0.0970749176394 116% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.428365303215 0.42659136922 100% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0515547241926 0.0774707102158 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.246072964842 0.312017818177 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.127687382354 0.0698173142475 183% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.33743842365 84% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.87684729064 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.82512315271 166% => OK
Positive topic words: 7.0 6.46551724138 108% => OK
Negative topic words: 12.0 5.36822660099 224% => OK
Neutral topic words: 6.0 2.82389162562 212% => OK
Total topic words: 25.0 14.657635468 171% => OK

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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations to cover all aspects.