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.
This is a letter from a Central Plaza store owner to the editor. The owner is clearly concerned that business is dropping and goes on to blame the increased popularity of skateboarding. He also adds that the amount of litters and vandalism has increased and puts the culpability on the many skateboarders. Although he might be right, he has not included enough evidence to prove so. There are many vague areas that need clarification, and there are many questions that need to be answered.
First, the owner failed to put numbers to his reasons. What facts and figures are available to show that people have shifted from shopping to skateboarding? Have the same people who were once shoppers diverted to skateboarding? Clearly if the skateboarder were never shoppers, then the drop in business should be blamed on some other reason. Perhaps, it is a festive season and many shoppers have travelled to other countries. Perhaps, it is a sporting season, where most of the shoppers have gone to the sports stores in other plazas. It could also be a period of winter, and young people have flooded the streets and the plaza, engaging mainly in skateboarding and having no interest in shopping. We cannot certainly conclude from the findings in the owner’s claim, until these cryptic areas are made more clear.
Another question that should be answered relates to the increased amount of litter and vandalism. How sure is the owner, that the skateboarders are indeed to blame for the increased litter and vandalism? It could be from other people, for example passers-by. It could also be that the period in question has experienced a lot of robbery incidents. Any thief might have broken into a store, stolen some clothes, picked some food and drink, and dropped the refuse on the floor. Any random person might just drop refuse in the plaza without having any knowledge of or skill in skateboarding. Until the owner puts figures to his claim, we cannot firmly say that the skateboarder are responsible for the increase in vandalism and litter.
In addition, there is some uncertainty around prohibiting skateboarding. What makes the owner think that banning skateboarding will increase the business? Because there is every chance that the skateboarder are different people and have no experience shopping, they can find other places to skate, if such a ban is upheld. As a result, it would defeat the aim of increasing business, as assumed by the shop owner.
In conclusion, the shop owner is bothered that his business is underperforming, and blames it on the increase in skateboarding in the plaza. However, he fails to put facts and figures to his claim. There are a few vague areas and unanswered questions. Until these are attended to, it is hard to determine the real reason for the decline in the owner’s business.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK, but this is wrong:
What facts and figures are available to show that people have shifted from shopping to skateboarding? Have the same people who were once shoppers diverted to skateboarding?
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 28 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2286 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.813 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.964 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.375 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.429 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.271 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.454 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, so, then, for example, in addition, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2365.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.97894736842 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84200701585 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477894736842 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 738.0 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 15.0 4.96107784431 302% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.1158139465 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 84.4642857143 119.503703932 71% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.9642857143 23.324526521 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.14285714286 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.213839364498 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0621254940157 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0829836588895 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123631241155 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0523458163343 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.5 14.3799401198 73% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.31 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.