The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Smith Jones.
"In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones plans to build a multi-million dollar subway system. The subway will run through the major downtown areas, a part of the town where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. For years, residents have been complaining both about inconsistent buses, and the general lack of safety while riding the buses. Additionally, the subway will be running twenty-four hours a day. Since motorists will spend less time in traffic, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones expects to see an immediate increase in worker productivity, which will improve the economy of Briggsville."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The memorandum proposes that on building a subway system in Briggsville, the traffic congestion will alleviate and it will help in augmenting the economy of the city as due to the reduced traffic, productivity will increase in the workers. This memorandum; though looks lucid from the periphery, includes various assumptions in it and without debunking these assumptions, it is difficult to ascertain the validity of the statement that the memorandum is proposing.
The first assumption it takes is that even after developing the subway system, what is the guarantee that people will immediately start using subway as their means of transportation. People from the city may not accept this change so easily and it is possible that people do not want to give up the comfort in travelling in their personal cars. The argument should have clearly stated on whether people are actually willing to use subway for travelling. If the city of Briggsville is filled with wealthy people, then most citizens would not be willing to use the subway system. A well-ilustrated survey on how many people are willing to use the subway system when it will be installed in the imminent future and whether people would willing to give up their personal vehicles for work should have been conducted to clear this assumption.
The second assumption this argument takes is that it states that it states that the subway will be running 24 hours a day. One question which has to be asked here is that is it really necessary to run 24 hours a day. The argument fails to mention what is the amount of traffic the city has every hour. If the amount of traffic in the downtown areas is maximum from 9A.M. to 7P.M., then the subway can function around this time. There is no clear motive on why should the subway run even if the traffic is not there. If traffic will not be there, then people would simply opt not to use the subway system. So, a proper statistical analysis should be carried out to see at what time of the day, the traffic is high and that data should determine on whether running subways 24 hours a day is a necessity.
The third assumption this argument takes is that it mentions that the worker productivity will increase immediately due to less traffic and as a result of it, the economy of Briggsville will improve. The argument does not clearly provide the relation between having less traffic on roads and the economy of the city. It is possible that the city has many IT professionals working and most of them are willing to work from home in these covid times. In this case, there will not be any significant change in the economy meterorically which the memorandum claims. If the memo would have mentioned that the economy of the briggsvile would be augmented incrementally or would it have given some relation on how traffic affects day-to-day jobs of the people, this point would have some credibility.
Due to these all assumptions, the memorandum fails to provide any cogent statement on how develping the subway system will help in increasing the economy of Briggsville and even if the people would be willing to switch to the subway system for their day-to-day operations. If the argument would have mentioned about the acceptance of the people of Briggsville towards the survey system, any concrete reason on why running subway 24 hours a day would be beneficial and some information about the occupation of the people and how traffic affects their levelyhood, then this argument would have been pellucid.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 2864 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.75 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.623 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 206 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.629 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.136 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 303, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...unt of traffic the city has every hour. If the amount of traffic in the downtown a...
^^
Line 5, column 369, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: M
...n the downtown areas is maximum from 9A.M. to 7P.M., then the subway can function...
^
Line 5, column 378, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: M
...ntown areas is maximum from 9A.M. to 7P.M., then the subway can function around t...
^
Line 7, column 575, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had mentioned'?
Suggestion: had mentioned
...hich the memorandum claims. If the memo would have mentioned that the economy of the briggsvile woul...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 290, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had mentioned'?
Suggestion: had mentioned
... day-to-day operations. If the argument would have mentioned about the acceptance of the people of B...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, if, look, may, really, second, so, then, third, well, as to, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 29.0 12.9520958084 224% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2920.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 602.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85049833887 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95335121839 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67799434923 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.375415282392 0.468620217663 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 904.5 705.55239521 128% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 69.9697051386 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.047619048 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.6666666667 23.324526521 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.2380952381 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.184981866591 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0772012620231 0.0743258471296 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0477015729464 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.130987489093 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0376409900813 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 48.3550499002 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.