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.
In the letter to the editor, Central Plaza store owner recommends that the city should prohibit skateboarding in the plaza, in order to increase the number of shoppers and return businesses to prosperity. Based on unfounded assumptions, additional questions are needed to be answered in order to decide whether the intervention of city officials will bring the predicted results.
First and foremost, it would be desirable to know if the opinion of the Central Plaza store owner who wrote this letter is consistent with the opinion of store owners' majority in this plaza. Making a survey among shop owners, or supplementing the letter with additional signatures would undoubtedly strengthen request of this particular owner, making it more likely for the city to accept proposed recommendation.
Secondly, it would be advisable to investigate what was the trend in the number of shoppers over the past two years in other stores, where skateboarding is not so popular. Did they also experience poor revenues? If the answer is positive, the decreased number of shoppers may be caused by weak economy. Therefore, there may be no connection between skateboarding in Central Plaza and decrease in the number of customers.
Furthermore, Central Plaza store owner claims that amount of litter and vandalism dramatically increased throughout the plaza. Is the litter an vandalism caused by skateboard users? Do they cause any harm to store owners or potential customers? Affirmative answers to these questions would be an additional evidence supporting unsubstantiated assumptions of store owner. If there is direct evidence showing adverse effects of skateboarding on potential customers, city may be obliged to prohibit skateboarding in this area.
Additionally, knowing that the skateboarding increase was noticed before the decrease in revenues, would further support shop owner in his claim. Conversely, if skateboarding became popular when aisles in Central Plaza became empty would undermine his argumentation.
To recapitulate, Central Plaza store owner's recommendation is not totally convincing for the city to take further action. Assumptions made in this letter need more evidence. Support from other shop owners from Central Plaza would be indispensable to convince city authorities.
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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: 18 15
No. of Words: 349 350
No. of Characters: 1901 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.322 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.447 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.045 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.434 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.601 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5