The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.
"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The following argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily the argument is based on the unwarranted assumptions that traffic demand of two different locations are considered same. Which is technically wrong because vehicular traffic of any location depends upon so many factors.
First of all, writer has failed to provide a traffic survey data which acts as a supporting document for the assumption which they have made that both Blue Highway and Green Highway are similar in terms of traffic related problems. Through this traffic data we can analyse and we can identify the factors which are affecting the traffic movement. If factors causing traffic problems for both the highways are same then, writer assumption can be considered as valid.
In addition to this the writer is blindly believing that traffic will remain constant in course of time. Which is also invalid thus makes his argument filled with flaws. Due to increase in population and demand in job opportunities, the traffic grows subsequently. Hence its foolishness to assume traffic in two different years remain same. According to official Transportation Research bodies, any city will see traffic growth rate of about 5% in urban area. This clearly indicates that we cannot come to conclusion that, a solution given to one highway will fit as a solution to other highway also or if solution does not works for one project will not work for other road project also.
Adding to this one more flaw in assumption that, suggesting an alternate solution in terms of providing bicycle lane to reduce traffic problem in Blue Highway just by knowing that local residents are interested in cycling. This data is insufficient which fails to provide information about how much proportion of people are interested in cycling. Even if they are interested, it’s important to know whether they are ready to go office by mode of cycling.
In the end, adding a bicycle track to Blue highway is appreciable one but, without having a sufficient technical data to support this proposal may not be successful in reducing a traffic related problems in the vicinity.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 348 350
No. of Characters: 1742 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.319 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.006 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.67 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.425 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.322 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 32, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
... valid. In addition to this the writer is blindly believing that traffic will remain constant in co...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 105, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Which” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...will remain constant in course of time. Which is also invalid thus makes his argument...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 265, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...nities, the traffic grows subsequently. Hence its foolishness to assume traffic in tw...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 624, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'work'
Suggestion: work
...er highway also or if solution does not works for one project will not work for other...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 683, Rule ID: ALSO_SENT_END[1]
Message: 'Also' is not used at the end of the sentence. Use 'as well' instead.
Suggestion: as well
...ct will not work for other road project also. Adding to this one more flaw in assum...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, may, so, then, thus, in addition, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1780.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 348.0 441.139720559 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11494252874 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.31911543099 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70557841836 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.543103448276 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 558.9 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.8390817268 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.25 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.75 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.6875 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.124011877124 0.218282227539 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0430042347855 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.028334618057 0.0701772020484 40% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0706622775131 0.128457276422 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0178854051174 0.0628817314937 28% => 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: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.72 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.