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 neighbourhoods. 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 weaken or strengthen the argument.
The above letter described the deteriorating commuting situation at Waymarsh, people’s traveling time has doubled during the past three years. The author suggests that the best solution is to follow Garville’s experience of inciting people to share rides via gas coupons. However, this essay is going to argue that three pieces of evidence are needed for this recommendation to be plausible. Specifically, people at Waymarsh are indeed strongly dissatisfied with the time they have to spend commuting; the seemingly effective policy implemented at Garville is applicable at Waymarsh; and this policy would keep being effective in longer time periods.
Firstly, evidence of people’s attitude towards commuting should be provided to assess whether this is a ubiquitous problem generating significant dissatisfaction. It is undeniable that, although the time has been doubled, 40 minutes should not be considered as a strikingly long time duration. Therefore, it is well-possible that Waymarsh residents deem it as merely common commuting time and do not require further action. In that case, this recommendation would seem superfluous since the cost of implementing the policy is less likely to be paid off by citizen’s increasing living satisfaction. However, if after surveying people’s attitudes toward commuting time, there are strong evidence that this is indeed a factor affecting people’s lives. Then, the author’s suggestion would be better grounded.
Secondly, following Garville’s example requires considerable similarities between the two cities, and thus relevant evidence needs to be provided. The author only pointed out that the two cities are nearby geometrically, however, other elements, such as economics, politics, and religion,
should also be taken into consideration. For example, people living at Garville might have a closer interpersonal relationship due to common religious beliefs, whereas Waymarsh residents might be relatively isolated because of disagreements on political views. In such cases, the policy of sharing rides would be much more easier to be implemented at Garville compared with that at Waymarsh. Alternatively, if those two cities are indeed comparable, then following other’s successful experience would be remarkably beneficial, and thus the author’s argument will be strengthened.
Finally, another crucial evidence to be provided is the long-term effect of the policy. Since the policy has only been implemented at Garville from last year, its usefulness might be an illusory short-term prosperity. What’s more, the seemingly striking increase of commuting time at Waymarsh might also be a temporary phenomenon, it is likely that the traffic will find its balance naturally in a longer period. Indeed, the policy of giving free coupons is not considered as sustainable, because that will either generate huge budget deficit or shadow gas companies with revenue losses. Therefore, longer periods of data is needed to be collected to determine whether giving away gas coupons is a sustainable policy. If that’s not the case, then the author’s argument is therefore being undermined, and the suggestion from the city council meeting might be a more fundamental reaction to increasing commuting time.
To summarise, this essay has argued that three pieces of evidence are indispensable in assessing the author’s argument. The investigation of city residents’ attitudes quantifies how influential the traffic problem can be. The comparison between Waymarsh and Garville determines whether the same policy is applicable and can receive similar effects. And finally, longer-term data qualifies the sustainability of the policy. Only if all those three evidence give support to the author’s argument should it be taken into further consideration.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 567 350
No. of Characters: 3150 1500
No. of Different Words: 276 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.88 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.556 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.988 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 268 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 205 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 158 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 101 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.013 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.593 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.495 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.045 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 319, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'easier' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: easier
...e policy of sharing rides would be much more easier to be implemented at Garville compared ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, whereas, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 44.0 19.6327345309 224% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3310.0 2260.96107784 146% => OK
No of words: 567.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.83774250441 5.12650576532 114% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87972968509 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.30165042373 2.78398813304 119% => OK
Unique words: 284.0 204.123752495 139% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.500881834215 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 1044.0 705.55239521 148% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.890530887 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.307692308 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8076923077 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.76923076923 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14579324251 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0502157145195 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0416189730858 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0880476707633 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0363856175008 0.0628817314937 58% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.24 48.3550499002 69% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.59 12.5979740519 132% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.44 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 171.0 98.500998004 174% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 17.0 11.9071856287 143% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.