The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner."Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central

Essay topics:

The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.

"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."

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 letter attempts to establish a causal relationship between the increase in skateboarding activity and the decline in the business in Central Plaza, thereby proposing a prohibition of skateboarding in the plaza to restore business.

Even if we do not consider skateboarding as a business in itself, there is always a possibility of a category of people who come to plaza for both shopping and entertainment (say skateboarding), prohibiting skateboarding therefore, may have an adverse effect on the business itself.

The author of the letter claims that the business in Central Plaza can return to the previous level consequent to the prohibition. There has to be an objective assessment of what that previous level was and how prohibiting skateboarding-which may turn away many potential shoppers, is going to return the business to the same level, if not more. Addressing the plausibility of this claim that prohibiting skateboarding 'alone' has the potential to restore business, can add more sanity to our further investigation into this recommendation.

The writer argues that 'many' other store owners share her belief, however, it brings into question the majority and impartiality of this view. If only those store owners with shops near the skateboarding facility were involved in the development of this view, then the possibility of competition-driven reactions cannot be neglected. Even if it does represent the view of the majority of the store owners irrespective of their vicinity with the skateboarding facility, other factors also demand an evaluation. For example, it is possible that the total number of people coming to the plaza has increased over the last two years, in which case, it is plausible for skateboarding to grow and number of shoppers to decrease without these events being mutually related. A systematic elimination of other such factors from the overall equation can help establish the significance of this view(of other store owners) presented in the letter.

Increase in litter in a commonly crowded places like a plaza can be attributed to many other factors than just the presence of a recreational facility. These factors could be, for example, if there is any construction work in progress in the plaza or if the popularity of say a restaurant inside plaza has increased, which increases the chances of people littering the surrounding areas too, etc. An investigation into these possibilities will help in either discounting the litter issue completely from the argument or strengthen it through further substantiation.

Vandalism on the other hand, is more likely to be an act of miscreants rather than the public indulged in recreational activities. Before attributing vandalism entirely to the skateboarding public, it is didactic to be sure about the activities of the other public too. We need to know if this claimed property damage happens near the skateboarding facility. If not, then we further need to address the questions like, if there are pubs, beer shops etc, whose customers under the influence of intoxication are committing the stated vandalism. Addressing such questions will help in validating the writer's stand on the relation between skateboarders and increased vandalism across the Central plaza.

I would posit that this recommendation should not be adopted at its face value. The concerned recommendation evaluation committee should assess the plausibility of the potential of recovering business in the Central Plaza by prohibiting skateboarding 'alone'. They have to be cautious about running into the danger of losing the faction of its shoppers who come to the Plaza for not only shopping but skateboarding as well. Litter in commonly crowded places cannot be attributed to the participation of people in a recreational activity alone, other factors need to be considered as well. Similarly, vandalism cannot be exclusively coupled with skateboarding and one needs to look into other equally persuasive factors as well.

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Comments

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, look, may, similarly, so, then, therefore, well, as to, for example, on the other hand

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 100.0 55.5748502994 180% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3376.0 2260.96107784 149% => OK
No of words: 627.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.38437001595 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.00399520894 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.23504975733 2.78398813304 116% => OK
Unique words: 292.0 204.123752495 143% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.465709728868 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 1073.7 705.55239521 152% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.2952873747 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.782608696 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2608695652 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.78260869565 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229658213953 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0724057633229 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0677513665965 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.124938814608 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.059822171374 0.0628817314937 95% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.5 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 13.0 7.1628742515 181% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.22 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 152.0 98.500998004 154% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 21.0 12.3882235529 170% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.

Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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 by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.