The following appeared in a health newsletter.
"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, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets."
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.
The author of the article states that government should focus on educating people on bicycle safety and less encourage bicycle riders to wear helmets. He arrives at this conclusion based on the correlation between the increase in the percentage of riders using helmets and the number of bicycle accidents over the past ten years. However, the argument is rife with holes and unstated assumptions. Thus, it fails to stand as a convincing argument on its own. Three unstated assumptions make this argument weak.
First, the author makes the assumption that changes in percentages will actually reflect the trend over the past ten years. For instance, the author points out the increase in helmet usage using the percentage values from 35% to 80%. There is no information about the number of bicycle riders today and ten years ago. Ten years ago, there might be more bicycle riders, and it could have been decreased over time with the arrival of motor vehicles. Ten years ago, there might be hundred bicycle riders, and only thirty-five were wearing helmets, but today there might be only ten riders, and eight of them are wearing helmets. This need not be interpreted as an increase in helmet usage. Similar for the number of accidents as well. Taking percentage values for comparing the trend without the absolute values makes this argument weak.
Second, the author tragically assumes that wearing helmets is a reason for bicycle accidents. He fails to provide evidence to show that wearing helmets is actually risking the bicyclists instead of protecting them. Among the accident cases, more serious injuries could have occurred to those who didn't wear the helmets. The bicyclist who wore helmets might have escaped with minor injuries. The author fails to show how wearing helmets puts the life of bicyclists in peril. Thus, if his assumption proved unwarranted, his proposal to less encourage bicyclists to wear helmets does not hold water.
Third, the author assumes that wearing helmets is the only reason for the bicycle accidents and correlate the available statistics. There could be several other reasons for the increase in bicycle accidents. An increase in the number of motor vehicles, which lead to the intensification of traffic over the past ten years, could have significantly contributed to the increase in the number of bicycle accidents. The road conditions and inclement weather conditions also could have contributed to the number of accidents. The author fails to address other possible factors in his argument. Thus, constructing the argument on top of this weak assumption makes the entire argument questionable.
In a nutshell, the argument of the author is highly contingent upon several unstated assumptions. Elaborating the argument with enough evidence to bolster author’s assumptions will produce a more convincing 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: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 458 350
No. of Characters: 2346 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.626 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.122 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.611 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.963 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.466 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.309 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.49 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 479, Rule ID: NODT_DOZEN[1]
Message: Use simply: 'a hundred'.
Suggestion: a hundred
...vehicles. Ten years ago, there might be hundred bicycle riders, and only thirty-five we...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 297, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...juries could have occurred to those who didnt wear the helmets. The bicyclist who wor...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, second, so, third, thus, well, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2414.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 457.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28227571116 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62358717085 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67333022685 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433260393873 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 742.5 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.2031744746 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.4074074074 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.9259259259 23.324526521 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.11111111111 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.259321985644 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0756478253937 0.0743258471296 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.072603587359 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141435902417 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0936132211184 0.0628817314937 149% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.