The following appeard in a helth newsletter.
"A ten year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35percent 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 200percent. 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."
The argument concludes that to reduce number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents, government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycle safety and less on wearing helmets. The argument cites different evidences to support this conclusion like in ten years the number of bicyclists wearing helmets increases from 35 percent to 80 percent, in these ten years number of bicycle related accidents has increased 200 percent. By wearing helmets bicyclists feel more safe and take more risk. But, these evidences does not conform to the conclusion. There are many flaws in the evidences.
First of all, argument states that number of helmet wearers of all bicyclists increases from 35 percent to 80 percent. But, the base figures are missing from the argument. The total number of bicyclists might be more ten years ago than now.
Secondly, argument asserts that bicyclists wearing helmets feel safe and take more risks. That causes more number of accidents. But, the argument considers only one factor that causes more accidents. It ignores other causes of accidents like increase in traffic, automobiles may lead to more number of accidents. Also, there is no proof provided in the argument that the accidents involve helmet wearing bicyclists.
Finally, argument asserts that government should concentrate more on educating people about bicycke safety and less on wearing helmets, to reduce number of serious injuries. But, helmet is a major part of bicycle safety. Wearing helmet helps in reducing chances of serious head injuries.So, by giving less importance to wearing helmet may lead to more serious injuries in bicycle accidents.
Thus, the conclusion is based on fallacious evidences. These hollow evidences lend little support to the conclusion. The argument may be strengthened by providing total number of bicyclists ten years ago and now, by considering other factors of accidents also. Presence of these evidences might make the conclusion more convincing.
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flaws:
No. of Different Words: 127 200
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.55 21.0
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 311 350
No. of Characters: 1637 1500
No. of Different Words: 127 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.199 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.264 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.579 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 107 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.55 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.617 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5