The following is from an editorial in the Midvale Observer, a local newspaper. "Ever since the 1950's, when television sets began to appear in the average home, the rate of crimes committed by teenagers in the country of Alta has steadily increased. This

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The following is from an editorial in the Midvale Observer, a local newspaper.

"Ever since the 1950's, when television sets began to appear in the average home, the rate of crimes committed by teenagers in the country of Alta has steadily increased. This increase in teenage crime parallels the increase in violence shown on television. According to several national studies, even very young children who watch a great number of television shows featuring violent scenes display more violent behavior within their home environment than do children who do not watch violent shows. Furthermore, in a survey conducted by the Observer, over 90 percent of the respondents were parents who indicated that prime-time television--programs that are shown between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.---should show less violence. Therefore, in order to lower the rate of teenage crime in Alta, television viewers should demand that television programmers reduce the amount of violence shown during prime time." - GRE Argument 41

This editorial concludes that increasingly violent television programming during prime time in the country of Alta is responsible for the steady increase in violent crime among Alta's teenagers. To support this conclusion the editorial cites various statistical studies about violence on television. However, this evidence provides little credible support for the editorial's conclusion.

To begin with, the editorial observes a correlation between violence on television and violent teenage crime, then concludes that the former is the cause of the latter. However, the editorial fails to rule ou...

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 499 350
No. of Characters: 2736 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.726 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.483 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.76 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 223 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 182 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.96 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.241 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.64 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5