The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
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.
The author of the above letter has made a very loose connection between the facts stated in the letter. There are certainly many flaws in this letter which forces us to think whether the reason stated in the above letter actually do make sense.
First of all the author said that the population of Balmer increases to a 100,000 in summer. He has given no statistics that state that what was the previous population of Balmer or by how much does this population increase? Without knowing the previous populatoion of Balmer an exact estimation of the current population increase of the town cannot be made. Also we do not know that every summer the population increases to a 100,000. It could be lesser one year or more the other year.
He also states that in order to reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies should be reduced from 50 per day to 25 per day. There is again no staistics which shows that reducing the number of mopeds to 50 percent will reduce the accidents by 50 percent. Nowhere in the passage has the author stated that reducing the mopeds by 50 percent is directly proportional to the accidents and will help in reducing the number of accidents by 50 percent in the town of Balmer. Also what about the people who own mopeds? We also do not know that whether these accidents were caused by the people who owned mopeds or by those who rented them.
The author has made a comparison of Balmer Island to Seaville island. But we do not know the poulation in Seaville Island. Also the desicion of Seaville's town council to reduce the moped rentals to 50 percent cannot be compared to Balmer Island's since we neither know the population nor are we sure about the exact number of moped users in both the islands. We also do not know how popular moped transportation was in Seavillle Islands. There is a possibilty that moped transportation was more popular in Seaville than at Balmer or vice versa. Therefore the estimation of mopeds in Balmer based on Seaville was a bit obscure and cryptic.
In order to be more clear and specific the author should have told us the exact number of moped users in both the islands. Also in order to make a comparison between the two island the exact population of both the towns should have been mentioned. Also he should have stated whether moped transportation in Seaville was as popular or more popular in Balmer. If all these facts would have been taken care of it would have graetly increased the value of the letter and helped in further understanding of the relation between moped accidents and the poulation increase in the island of Balmer.
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Sentence: Without knowing the previous populatoion of Balmer an exact estimation of the current population increase of the town cannot be made.
Error: populatoion Suggestion: population
Sentence: There is again no staistics which shows that reducing the number of mopeds to 50 percent will reduce the accidents by 50 percent.
Error: staistics Suggestion: statistics
Sentence: But we do not know the poulation in Seaville Island.
Error: poulation Suggestion: population
Sentence: Also the desicion of Seaville's town council to reduce the moped rentals to 50 percent cannot be compared to Balmer Island's since we neither know the population nor are we sure about the exact number of moped users in both the islands.
Error: desicion Suggestion: decision
Sentence: There is a possibilty that moped transportation was more popular in Seaville than at Balmer or vice versa.
Error: possibilty Suggestion: possibility
Sentence: If all these facts would have been taken care of it would have graetly increased the value of the letter and helped in further understanding of the relation between moped accidents and the poulation increase in the island of Balmer.
Error: poulation Suggestion: population
Error: graetly Suggestion: greatly
flaws:
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2186 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.602 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.461 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.591 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.67 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.26 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5