The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.
"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
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 owner of the Central Plaza reports a sharp fall in the number of shoppers in the recent two years, while the number of skateboard users has witnessed a sudden increase. Based on this comparison, the owner predicts that if the police impose restrictions for skateboarding in the Plaza, the business will be profitable again. Although the argument may seem reasonable at first sight, it contains several ambiguities that makes it untenable.
Firstly, the argument fails to provide statistics and information regarding the number of shoppers and number of skateboard users in the Central Plaza. As the owner mentions, there has been a decrease in the number of shoppers while the number of skateboard users experienced a dramatic increase. However, there is no data available about the percentages of rise and fall during these two years. Additionally, the author is required to consider the unanswered questions about the financial state of the citizens. Perhaps, the economy confronted a crisis that reduced the resident’s capability to shop as before. Therefore, the prediction of the owner would have been stronger had it discussed the economic situation of the people. If people are able to shop as two years age, restricting skateboard users rehabilitate the business of Central Plaza.
More significantly, the argument blames skateboard users of being responsible for the recent increase in vandalism and amount of litter all around the Plaza. However, the owner fails to bring justification for this claim that there are no other sources for this catastrophic event. He leaves many unanswered questions such as: Have ever the police arrest a skateboard user as a vandal? Does the surveillance control camera record a video to prove this allegation? If skateboard users are exculpated of this claim after the police investigation, the prediction falls apart since there would be still vandalism in the area.
Finally, the argument would have been stronger had it provide information about the competitors of the Plaza. Perhaps, there are several malls, shopping centers or stores as the same as Plaza in the neighborhood that people are using those stores instead of Plaza. It is possible that the market is so competitive that other stores are offering lower prices to customers that caused the business in the Plaza not to be profitable anymore. This important difference in prices may not only explain the recent reduction in number of shoppers, but also may refute the credibility of the prediction.
To recapitulate, the owner of the Central Plaza blames the proliferation of skateboard users as the source of recent profligate business of the Plaza. The suggestion of prohibiting skateboard users includes numerous unanswered questions and unexamined suppositions as mentioned above which presents the argument to be replete with holes.
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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: 452 350
No. of Characters: 2354 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.611 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.208 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.873 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.817 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 55, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'provides'?
Suggestion: provides
...rgument would have been stronger had it provide information about the competitors of th...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, so, still, therefore, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2410.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 452.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.33185840708 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61088837703 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96761173312 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.464601769912 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 773.1 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
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: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 28.520033139 57.8364921388 49% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 114.761904762 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5238095238 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.80952380952 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
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: 0.305411835343 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0946494728112 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0974425712341 0.0701772020484 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.184978926398 0.128457276422 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0816938996295 0.0628817314937 130% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.63 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.