In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55 mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago.
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.
In this argument, the author suggests that Prunty County should take the same road improvement project as Butler County in order to lower its accident rate and improve highway safety. Plausible as it seems to be, however, there are a lot of evidences, which, if not investigated, would dramatically reduce the persuasiveness of the argument.
The first piece of evidence needed is regarding the credibility of the information reported by the highway patrol. It seems that more accidents happened after limiting the speed, hence, this policy seems to be invalid. However, more information should be proved about the level of the accidents. Maybe the majority of the accidents are just slight and moderate, and few people was hurt in the accidents. Yet accidents happened before were more serious than now and caused a large amount of people injured and possession lost. If this is the case, it will dramatically weaken the recommendation.
The second piece of evidence involving the geological feature of the two places. The author assumes that it has been proved that the three implements on road conditions in Butler was affected and did benefit the highway safety. However, these may not work well in Prunty County if the two places are significantly different from each other in road condition. For example, if the roads in Butler County are mostly lied inside the hills which made driver hard to acknowledge what the situation is like 2 miles forehead, it is valid for these roads to improve visibility at dangerous intersections. But if the roads in Prunty County are in a good geological location and are mostly located in the plains where have no obstacles to block the drivers’ sights, and then, there is no necessary to do so.
The last evidence needs to scrutinize is about the real reason for the more reported accidents. The author assumes, without justification, that it is the relatively low limited speed leads to the higher accident cases. However, there could be other explanations. Maybe driver in Prunty County haven't noticed the speed limit sign on the road which required under 45 mph, while they are familiar with the limited speed in near-by counties generally under 55 mph. If this scenario has merit, maybe Prunty County should find some way to inform drivers more clearly rather than caring about the road conditions. Besides, more information also needed related the safety awareness of the drivers in Prunty. If the drivers do not have a good habit of driving, which plays the key role of the causes of most accidents, then Prunty County should open some safety education courses instead of putting their attention mostly on the road policy.
Overall, this argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. Therefore, if the author is able to investigate the evidence listed above, it is possible to fully evaluate the soundness of the recommendation that whether Prunty County should take the same implements as Bulter County.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2460 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.94 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.617 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 188 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.636 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.754 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.293 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.499 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 414, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'lain'.
Suggestion: lain
...f the roads in Butler County are mostly lied inside the hills which made driver hard...
^^^^
Line 13, column 294, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: haven't
...anations. Maybe driver in Prunty County havent noticed the speed limit sign on the roa...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 646, Rule ID: NEEDS_FIXED[1]
Message: "needed related" is only accepted in certain dialects. For something more widely acceptable, try 'relating' or 'to be related'.
Suggestion: relating; to be related
.... Besides, more information also needed related the safety awareness of the drivers in ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, hence, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, well, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2547.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 497.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12474849095 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73509850989 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 254.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.51106639839 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 805.5 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.0782261678 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.772727273 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5909090909 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.27272727273 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238838521927 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0630042076385 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0667688818434 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.135066733513 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0527969906212 0.0628817314937 84% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.