The following is a petition to the city council of Centerville:
"Over the past three years, there has been a marked increase in cases of 'sidewalk rage,' similar to the irrational anger drivers experience on the road, but instead among sidewalk walkers. The result is an increase in assaults, property damage, and disruptions of normal pedestrian traffic. In order to address this growing problem, the council must ban cell phone use on sidewalks. Not only do people texting or using their phones slow down pedestrian traffic, but they are also more likely to walk into the road or bump into other walkers. Children are especially vulnerable because they are too short to be easily seen. Middletown passed such a ban and not only have they heard no complaints, but the reported incidents of sidewalk crime has gone down significantly."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The prompt suggests that sidewalk rage incidents are caused directly as a result of cell phone use on sidewalks. The author makes a number of incomplete assumptions - which without addressing, renders the conclusion baseless. Below I discuss three pieces of evidence whose presence will shed light on the reality of the situation presented.
First and foremost, what is the proof of sidewalk rage originating due to the use of cell phones? Sure, cell phone usage leads to incidents such as slowing down pedestrians and risking children. But, is that what causes the rages and in-turn the assaults? It could be possible that the city of Centerville has a group of detestable people who seem to cause assaults and rage. It may also be likely that collision among pedestrians is caused due to rushers, instead of slow walkers. Maybe Centerville has a lot of job-holding people who regularly use the side-walk to go to work and every so often get late and try to run to work. This may not only cause hazards but may foment conflicts if incidents of collision and accidents occur on a daily basis. Should there be a way to pinpoint the incidents and tally their causes, the real culprit of sidewalk rage could be found and eliminated.
Secondly, is there evidence suggesting Centerville and Middletown are similar? The similarity in terms of area, population, number of sidewalks, number of people using the sidewalk on a daily basis. While Middletown heard no complaints after banning the use of cell-phones, did other constraints remain constant? It may be possible that Middletown built an overbridge on the roads with the busiest sidewalks, or expanded the sidewalks, which cause the density of people using the sidewalks to reduce, and so the collision, rage, and crimes to reduce. It may also be possible that the population of the town decreased, perhaps because of so many incidents occurring.
Moreover, some evidence is required as to what kind of crimes reduced in Middletown due to cell phone ban. Imagine a scenario where a sidewalk full of people walk staring at their cell phones yet keeping a side-eye on where they are stepping. Although not ideal, it may be possible that it may be targeted by pick-pocketers. That may be the kind of crimes that were reduced due to banning cell phone usage, which should actually be treated in ways that help get hold of the outlaws. A more detailed analysis of the crimes that used to occur and do not anymore, in Middletown, due to sidewalk rages, could provide more basis to the conclusion of the argument provided.
The presented reasoning for banning the use of cell phones for all in the sidewalks is a little extreme and faulty for lack of evidence in various aspects. The causes and effects of cell phone usage in Centerville, and cell phone banning in Middletown need to be analyzed in-depth, in consideration with extrinsic factors, to be able to draw a finer and more reasonable conclusion to the argument.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-24 | Ruhani | 63 | view |
| 2023-08-12 | hello_kratnesh101 | 30 | view |
| 2023-07-25 | manavkamdar27 | 58 | view |
| 2023-07-19 | jayauen | 50 | view |
| 2023-06-15 | vignesh1317 | 60 | view |
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 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: 503 350
No. of Characters: 2407 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.736 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.785 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.87 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.914 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.487 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.032 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, while, as to, kind of, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2473.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 503.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.91650099404 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73578520332 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76569295832 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48310139165 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 779.4 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
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: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.4963440656 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.52173913 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8695652174 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.86956521739 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.104881823552 0.218282227539 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0376690601759 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0357801686604 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0646102349841 0.128457276422 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0312586352599 0.0628817314937 50% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.