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.
The author of the letter makes one big inferred assumption: what happened in Seaville will happen in Balmer Island. It’s easy to understand why the author would make this assumption, however the lack of evidence and other necessary information makes his argument flawed and hollow.
Towards the end of the text, the author dispels the notion behind his overarching plan. It is assumed that Seaville had a similar issue, and given the actions they took, their problem was minimized. Therefore, if we follow the plan, it will have the same effect in our town. There is an enormous amount of questions that can be brought up to pummel the author for making such a terrible assumption: How big is the population of Seaville? Did they have a higher or lower amount of population increase during the summer compared to Balmer Island? What was the data used to commend such actions? Where is the data to support the premise of the author? To say the least, the author is making a big leap. Perhaps his intentions are good, but without evidence, a sound and logical decision cannot be made using his ideas.
Furthermore, once we dive into the actual proposal we come to another bump in the road: How will this change affect the whole island economically? Sure, it may reduce the amount of accidents, but will it have other unforeseen effects across the island? If the population increases every summer, that must have a positive impact on the economy of the island. One would presume, the residents and businesses may depend on this economic boost from visitors. What was the effect this decision had on the island of Seaville? The author fails to provide evidence of the consequences this decision may have. Again, there seems to be a necessity change a few things, but without evidence it’s hard to believe the author’s argument will help.
Lastly, the recommendation itself is that by reducing the number of rentals per day from 50 to 25 will attain a 50 percent annual reduction as it did in Seaville. Once again, Seaville is a different island, they may be similar, but are not replicas of each other. Also, how would reducing the number of rentals lead to a 50 percent reduction? Has the author considered that perhaps the majority of visitors may be owners of mopeds? If there are 500 visitors per day, and only 50 of them rent mopeds, then reducing the number to 25 won’t make a big difference. There will be 475 mopeds in circulation. So, logically speaking, unless the author provides data, his assumption is unwarranted.
A suggestion that reducing moped rentals from 50 to 25 per day will reduce by 50 percent the annual rate of accidents would be a good idea if it had the foundation to stand scrutiny. Once inspected, the author implies that because similar actions were taken in a neighboring town, the same actions will have the same effect in Balmer Island. Nonetheless, due to the lack of evidence to support the author’s argument, it’s hard to see how effective such actions will be to improve the moped situation in the island.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 2 is out of topic.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 528 350
No. of Characters: 2450 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.794 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.64 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.462 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 185 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.06 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.607 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.455 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 281, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'reduce'
Suggestion: reduce
...replicas of each other. Also, how would reducing the number of rentals lead to a 50 perc...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, nonetheless, so, then, therefore
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2555.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 527.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84819734345 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79129216042 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.64198775649 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 249.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472485768501 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 805.5 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.0335228807 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 91.25 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8214285714 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.92857142857 5.70786347227 51% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.157351963158 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0478292585739 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0576758477444 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0949753699933 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0147165436499 0.0628817314937 23% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.85 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.