The following is a letter to the editor of the Waymarsh Times.
"Traffic here in Waymarsh is becoming a problem. Although just three years ago a state traffic survey showed that the typical driving commuter took 20 minutes to get to work, the commute now takes closer to 40 minutes, according to the survey just completed. Members of the town council already have suggested more road building to address the problem, but as well as being expensive, the new construction will surely disrupt some of our residential neighborhoods. It would be better to follow the example of the nearby city of Garville. Last year Garville implemented a policy that rewards people who share rides to work, giving them coupons for free gas. Pollution levels in Garville have dropped since the policy was implemented, and people from Garville tell me that commuting times have fallen considerably. There is no reason why a policy like Garville's shouldn't work equally well in Waymarsh."
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.
At hand is the problem of Waymarsh, although it is to be known whether this problem is as severe as the author states. To reduce traffic and hence travelling time for driving commuters, the author posits an interesting argument on replicating Garville’s alleged success through car-shares and reward coupons.
The premise for the argument lies in the fact that typical driving commute time has doubled quantitatively compared to a similar survey done three years ago. However, we cannot be certain that the relative commuting time has increased without information on the length of these journeys. Should Waymarsh residents have begun to work outside city limits or further from home, this could be an alternative explanation for the rise in commuting time. To strengthen the argument, distance travelled, and a comparable sample size of residents would benefit the author’s point in that it takes double the time to travel along the same road.
Given that the premise begins flawed, the author continues to assume that there is a “problem” with Waymarsh traffic and suggests replicating Garville’s solution in encouraging car-sharing through gas rewards.
Despite no evidence on the uptake of such rewards and car-sharing tendencies, the author begins to attribute a fall in pollution levels to this new measure, which is logical had the number of cars on the road decreased. Realistically, it would be difficult to determine a cause-effect relationship between number of cars on the road and pollution levels in the short run, given that the measure was implemented only last year in Garville. Similarly, the city of Garville may likely share similar trends in pollution levels due to its proximity with other cities and variable wind direction. Hence pollution levels are not a good indication of better traffic nor of the success of the car-sharing measure.
Linking the success of the car-sharing measure to decreased pollution levels, the author further “corroborates” the success by sharing some anecdotes reflecting lessened commuting times in Garville. It may further weaken the argument if the author has chosen to cherry-pick successful stories of lower commuting time, which could reflect a small minority, or a larger group who have seen shorter commuting times but not due to the car-sharing measure.
Another measure the author rejects is that of more road building. While his concerns about cost and neighborhood disruptiveness are valid, the author may strengthen his argument by referring to real-time and collected data on peak hour locations and traffic, giving us a more substantiated view on whether the traffic problem is caused by lack of city planning or the increase in cars on the roads.
Therefore the argument is dubious as the author’s premises may be flawed and build upon each other illogically.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2334 1500
No. of Different Words: 231 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.175 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.8 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.188 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.23 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.438 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.679 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.154 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 592, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...her cities and variable wind direction. Hence pollution levels are not a good indicat...
^^^^^
Line 13, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
... the increase in cars on the roads. Therefore the argument is dubious as the author’s...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, hence, however, if, may, similarly, so, then, therefore, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2411.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 451.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34589800443 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60833598836 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95620878952 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.532150776053 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 737.1 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => 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: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 62.9462816614 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 150.6875 119.503703932 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.1875 23.324526521 121% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1875 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.184718963505 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0666312111931 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0581043543408 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0916339564134 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0647719667312 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.9 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.37 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.