The following appeared in the City Council Proceedings section of the local newspaper in Smithville.
"The city council of Smithville has recommended making changes to police procedures to improve the visibility of the police force. These changes include hiring more police officers, budgeting more funds for police overtime, and directing officers to patrol significantly more often on foot rather than from their patrol cars. These improvements in visibility would significantly lower the crime rate in Smithville and make its citizens feel safer."
The city council of Smithville believes that changes in police procedures would significantly lower the crime rate of their town and increase citizens’ feeling of safety. The changes proposed include hiring more police officers, budgeting more funds towards police overtime, and directing officers to patrol more often on foot rather than from patrol cars. While safety is a valid concern for any town, based on the changes proposed by Smithville’s city council, there is not significant enough evidence to make their argument convincing.
The city council’s first improvement is to hire more police officers to deter crime and make the citizens feel safer. While more police officers could do just that, there is nothing in the City Council Proceedings that states where the town will get the additional funds necessary to hire more police officers. If the city council provided a budget proposal of where they were planning on getting the additional money, their argument would be better backed.
The second change that the city council proposed is to budget more for police overtime. If the police were working overtime, there would be more police actively on duty throughout more of hours of the day. While this could deter criminals, it would be better supported if there was data on when during the day crimes are most likely to be committed. For example, if the police are working overtime, but during hours that are not typically prone to criminal activities, the police working overtime may not contribute to a lower crime rate in Smithville. Even more fundamental, this change assumes that police officers would be willing to work overtime, even for the additional pay. If an officer has been working certain hours, he or she may have other commitments during off hours that would not allow additional hours to be taken on.
The city council’s third point is to direct officers to patrol more on foot instead of from patrol cars. Police officers on foot could make them more visible to citizens, therefore contributing to their feeling of safety, but the city council provides no evidence that this is the case. An officer in a patrol car may be more apparent to citizens, and if they do not notice officers on foot as much, the change will not contribute to the citizens feeling any safer. The city council’s argument would be strengthened if there was an interview in which they received opinions from citizens that a police officer on foot would increase their feeling of safety versus a patrol car.
Overall, the city council of Smithville’s argument that their proposed changes will lower the crime rate of their town and increase citizens’ feeling of safety is not convincing. An addition of more police officers would be more plausible if they provided data on where the additional funds would come from. Additionally, moving funds towards police overtime could be effective if the overtime that police were working was hours that crime commonly takes place. Finally, police officers on foot would only increase citizens’ feeling of safety if the officers were noticeable without their patrol cars. Considering the changes that the city council of Smithville provided and without additional information, their argument is not convincing.
- Progress should be the aim of any great society. People too often cling unnecessarily to obsolete ways of thinking and acting because they enjoy feeling comfortable and fear the unknown. 50
- The following appeared in the City Council Proceedings section of the local newspaper in Smithville."The city council of Smithville has recommended making changes to police procedures to improve the visibility of the police force. These changes inclu 77
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 533 350
No. of Characters: 2672 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.805 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.013 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.474 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 145 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.381 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.473 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.417 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.585 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.152 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 466, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... their argument would be better backed. The second change that the city council ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 692, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... feeling of safety versus a patrol car. Overall, the city council of Smithville&...
^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...on, their argument is not convincing.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, may, second, then, therefore, third, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2779.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 533.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2138836773 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80487177365 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75203250256 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.363977485929 0.468620217663 78% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 898.2 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 33.2896993323 57.8364921388 58% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 132.333333333 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.380952381 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.80952380952 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.259850735611 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119099100221 0.0743258471296 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0780251411223 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.195319263763 0.128457276422 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0483094117884 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.6 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.