Analyze an Argument Task #1
The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Peter Jones. “In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Peter Jones plans to build a multi-million-dollar subway system. The subway will run through the major downtown areas, a part of the town where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. For years, residents have been complaining both about inconsistent buses and the general lack of safety while riding the buses. Additionally, the subway will be running twenty-four hours a day. Since motorists will spend less time in traffic, Mayor Harrison Peter Jones expects to see an immediate increase in worker productivity, which will improve the economy of Briggsville.”
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.
Traffic congestion is a menace to any town that is vying for productivity and increased economic activity. Traffic congestion, put simply, slows down the economy; it slows down the town. That being said, in order to relieve Briggsville's notorious traffic congestion, building a multi-million dollar subway system is not the only solution, and is by no means, the only solution. The argument itself is too presumption, and the assumptions, dubiously flawed.
For one, Briggsville is a town, and not a city. The Mayor has based his or her idea on the assumption that the town is city-like, which it clearly is not. The Mayor may be trying to mimic the neighbouring city's ideas and ways of managing traffic congestion. Subways, particularly that which costs multi-million dollars to build are always part of a metropolitan city. In such cities, the economy is already thriving way beyond the stipulated average, and a subway simply adds as an incentive. Metropolitan cities general billions of dollars in revenue, and as such, they are in a position to spend proportionately to solve certain problems as well as for the glitz and glamour. On the other hand, a town could never generate such revenue. It's economic scope is limited. Being so, the Mayor should make his or her decisions in an astute manner.
Thinking astutely, the Mayor should think of cost-effective and cost-efficient solutions. The Mayor must get the town's priorities straight. Has the mayor thought of instating additional buses? The Mayor, again, incorrectly assumes that buses themselves could never solve the underlying problem. Manufacturing newer buses as well as refurbishing the older ones are immensely cheaper than investing in the multi-million dollar subway system. This initiative, too, would generate employment.
Furthermore, concerning the lack of safety, the Mayor assumes that a subway system would solve the problem. Picking up a metropolitan city newspaper would definitely prove otherwise. There are countless cases of robbery, assault, and the occassional kidnap or murder in subways. So, the problem is widespread regardless of mode of transport. Therefore, the Mayor should summon a task force to solve the safety problems occurring in buses. He or she could instate a separate helpline for the bus drivers to invoke an emergency call should something untoward happen. The citizens of Briggsville must be advised accordingly how to deal with such thuggery and support their fellow citizens. Also, modern technology allows safety even on a human being using various wearable gadets, and let's not forget the smartphone.
Next, comes the case of the 24/7 transport and lack of transport during the day. The Mayor again assumes that only subways could solve this problem.
The case remains that buses could accomplish the same, and even more, they could do it at a fraction of the subway operation costs. The Mayor should increase the number of buses during peak hours to deal with the increased congestion during the day. During the night, the Mayor could formulate the statistics with regard to the expected journey timings of the public. He or she could arrange the buses accordingly, but with lesser frequency.
Finally, with regards to the motorists filling up the main road, the Mayor could create awareness programmes. A lot of vehicles generate too much pollution. This pollution, in time, would degrade the beauty that is Briggville. The Mayor should encourage the public to avoid private vehicles as much as possible, and switch to public transport. That is one way how congestion could be decreased. The other is generating health awareness, and why it is better to travel peripatetically than on a two or four-wheeler.
All these above ideas would do the following: decrease congestion, decrease pollution, increase health awareness and the overall health, reduce the multi-million dollar costs, increase public safety, and also, generate employment. Indirectly, as an expected consequence, a de-congested road would imply free-flowing of traffic, and thereby, the economy. Briggsville would thrive even more, and this time, cost-effectively.
Comments
e-rater score report
Not exactly right on the topic.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 21 2
No. of Sentences: 42 15
No. of Words: 656 350
No. of Characters: 3384 1500
No. of Different Words: 311 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.061 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.159 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.856 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 250 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 184 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 133 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 95 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.619 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.29 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.333 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.234 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.438 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 145, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y. Traffic congestion, put simply, slows down the economy; it slows down the town...
^^^
Line 2, column 133, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...notorious traffic congestion, building a multi-million dollar subway system is no...
^^^
Line 3, column 140, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... The argument itself is too presumption, and the assumptions, dubiously flawed. ...
^^^
Line 6, column 147, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the town is city-like, which it clearly is not. The Mayor may be trying to mimic...
^^^
Line 7, column 144, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...estion. Subways, particularly that which costs multi-million dollars to build are...
^^^
Line 8, column 140, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...onomy is already thriving way beyond the stipulated average, and a subway simply ...
^^^
Line 9, column 147, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ars in revenue, and as such, they are in a position to spend proportionately to s...
^^^
Line 10, column 147, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... other hand, a town could never generate such revenue. Its economic scope is limi...
^^^
Line 11, column 99, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in an astute manner" with adverb for "astute"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
... Mayor should make his or her decisions in an astute manner. Thinking astutely, the Mayor should...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 14, column 146, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...mselves could never solve the underlying problem. Manufacturing newer buses as we...
^^^
Line 15, column 139, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...an investing in the multi-million dollar subway system. This initiative, too, wou...
^^^
Line 18, column 139, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... problem. Picking up a metropolitan city newspaper would definitely prove otherwi...
^^^
Line 20, column 140, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... task force to solve the safety problems occurring in buses. He or she could inst...
^^^
Line 21, column 138, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...emergency call should something untoward happen. The citizens of Briggsville must...
^^^
Line 22, column 143, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...port their fellow citizens. Also, modern technology allows safety even on a human...
^^^
Line 23, column 83, Rule ID: LETS_LET[1]
Message: Did you mean 'Let's'?
Suggestion: Let's
...eing using various wearable gadets, and lets not forget the smartphone. Next, com...
^^^^
Line 27, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...action of the subway operation costs. The Mayor should increase the number of bus...
^^^
Line 27, column 140, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...on during the day. During the night, the Mayor could formulate the statistics wit...
^^^
Line 28, column 143, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...she could arrange the buses accordingly, but with lesser frequency. Finally, w...
^^^
Line 31, column 146, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...mes. A lot of vehicles generate too much pollution. This pollution, in time, woul...
^^^
Line 32, column 145, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...age the public to avoid private vehicles as much as possible, and switch to publi...
^^^
Line 33, column 146, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...he other is generating health awareness, and why it is better to travel peripatet...
^^^
Line 36, column 137, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...health awareness and the overall health, reduce the multi-million dollar costs, i...
^^^
Line 37, column 136, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ndirectly, as an expected consequence, a de-congested road would imply free-flowi...
^^^
Line 38, column 132, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e would thrive even more, and this time, cost-effectively.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, finally, furthermore, may, so, therefore, well, as for, as well as, with regard to, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 27.0 11.1786427146 242% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3556.0 2260.96107784 157% => OK
No of words: 655.0 441.139720559 148% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.42900763359 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.05894927669 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9628966372 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 329.0 204.123752495 161% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502290076336 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 1059.3 705.55239521 150% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 25.0 8.76447105788 285% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 14.0 1.67365269461 836% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 42.0 19.7664670659 212% => Too many sentences.
Sentence length: 15.0 22.8473053892 66% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.0709040684 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 84.6666666667 119.503703932 71% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.5952380952 23.324526521 67% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.97619047619 5.70786347227 52% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 32.0 5.15768463074 620% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 25.0 5.25449101796 476% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 18.0 8.20758483034 219% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.214246362448 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0463791914597 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0487284432308 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0530834007677 0.128457276422 41% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0403233314273 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.25 48.3550499002 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 185.0 98.500998004 188% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.0 11.1389221557 72% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.