The following appeared in a health newsletter.
"A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the newsletter, the author draws an astounding conclusion that states wearing a helmet has negative impact on bicycling safety. Whether or not always wearing a helmet is an important issues that could kill a person and requires carefully consideration. However, close examination shows that the conclusion in the newsletter is fallacious.
Citing the two studies over the past ten years, the author first assumes that a higher percentage of bicyclists have experienced bicycle-related accidents. However, an increased number of bicycle-related accidents does not necessarily indicate such mishaps are more common among bicyclists, because the total number of people who ride bicycle could also have gone up. For example, if there are three times more bicyclists than ten years ago, and the number of bike-related accidents has increased 200 percent, a lower percentage of bicyclists have actually be involved in such incidents.
Even if a higher percentage of bikers have experienced bike-related accidents, there could be other reasons that could have resulted in this growth other than wearing helmets. But the author here assumes wearing helmets is the only cause, supposing it is a cause. For example, with a growth of population, the traffic condition could be more convoluted than that of ten years ago, which might lead to more bicycle-related accidents. Therefore, the author needs to investigate the reasons behind the bicycle-related incidents to ascertain the real reason.
The author then made a gratuitous assumption which claims bicyclists tend to get sloppy because they feel more safety brought about by wearing a helmet. Nonetheless, feeling safe does not necessarily result in being imprudent. For example, some people could be naturally more cautious and will not act boldly even if they feel safe. Likewise, some people may be more innately impetuous. The author would need to survey a reasonable number of bicycle riders to verify his assumption.
Last but not least, basing on the assumption that people take more risks when wearing a helmet, the author asserts that the government should place less emphasis on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets. The unstated assumption here is that wearing helmets is at odds with bicycle safety. However, even if the previous assumption is proven true, it is this bold mentality that leads to accidents, rather than wearing helmets. What the government should do then is to educate people to stay clear of this dangerous mentality. Wearing helmets itself has no problem, people just need to be more careful.
Conclusively, the author made a number of assumptions in the newsletter. Some of them are logically unsound while some of them call for more supporting evidences. Otherwise, it may mislead readers.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- not OK. 'What the government should do then is to educate people to stay clear of this dangerous mentality.'
look at the conclusion:
Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets
seems you ignored the 'should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety'. the assumption is that education on safety issues will contribute to the enhancement of security awareness and thereby reduce the occurrence of accidents, which is not true.
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Let's analyze the structure of the statement :
condition 1:
A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of bicycle-related accidents has increased 200 percent. //your argument 1
condition 2:
These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. //your argument 2 and 3
conclusion:
Thus, to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, the government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on encouraging or requiring bicyclists to wear helmets. //your argument 4, but it is wrong
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 439 350
No. of Characters: 2294 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.577 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.226 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.821 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.087 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.037 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.739 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Thanks very much for pointing
Thanks very much for pointing out the problem!
So for the last point, should I instead argue that concentrating more on educating about safety contradicts with the author's previous assumption that feeling safe leads to risky acts?
No, we only need to argue the
No, we only need to argue the conclusion itself since it brings a new solution.
We need to argue :
whether the positive aspects of bicycle safety education override the necessity of helmet usage or not.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 132, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'Whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: Whether
...as negative impact on bicycling safety. Whether or not always wearing a helmet is an important...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 187, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'issue'?
Suggestion: issue
...always wearing a helmet is an important issues that could kill a person and requires c...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 558, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'been'.
Suggestion: been
... percentage of bicyclists have actually be involved in such incidents. Even if...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, may, nonetheless, so, then, therefore, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2358.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 437.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.39588100686 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57214883401 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92424876302 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.50114416476 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 729.9 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 51.6404246628 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.52173913 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.26086956522 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => 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: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.206925910133 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0601715910296 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0503767480329 0.0701772020484 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106251983522 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0476871136467 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.04 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.