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 author's argument that prohibition of skateboarding would help restore business in Central Plaza is flawed. In the argument, the author fails to establish a concrete onnection between skateboarding and drop in business and draws a conclusion without any statistical evidence. In addition, the author makes the mistake of holding the skateboard users responsible for spoiling the atmosphere of Central Plaza without any proof.
Firstly, the conclusion is based on a vague relationship between skateboarding and decline in business. In doing so, the author fails to explain clearly how skateboarding has been unfavourable to business in Central Plaza. If skateboarding has been drawing more people to Central Plaza, it should have been beneficial for business as more people get to know about the place. Instead, business has been decreasing and the author does not provide any numbers to show the rate of decrease.
Secondly, the conclusion is based on what Central Plaza store owners believe, without any substantial proof. The author neither provides information regarding the number of store owners who have the opinion that skateboarding has adversely affected their business nor provides data which helped them come to that conclusion. The argument could be strengthened if the author provided evidence to support the store owners' opinion, like sales statistics for the past years.
Thirdly, the conclusion is based on the increase of unacceptable acts throughout the plaza. In doing so, the author fails to mention the people behind such actions. The underlying assumption is that skateboard users are responsible for littering and vandalizing the plaza, when this assumption is unwarranted. Skateboard users may not be culpable as they may have been behaving with propriety. Some other people may have been responsible for such bad behaviour and the store owners may have failed to identify the reasons. Also, the author does not provide any information regarding the Central Plaza management's attempts to curb or prevent such behaviour and if the measures taken were successful or not. The author has to provide substantial proof to show that skateboard users have been responsible for tarnishing the ambience of Central Plaza.
Fourthly, the author draws a conclusion that if skateboarding is prohibited, business in Central Plaza would be restored, without giving any solid proof. Business in Central Plaza may have decreased because of other factors like degradation of their products' quality, increased products' prices or new, attractive shopping centers nearby. If this is the case, prohibition of skateboarding wouldn't be of much help. The management of Central Plaza would have to take necessary steps and come up with creative ways to attract customers and increase their business.
In conclusion, the argument could be strengthened if the author provided statistics and solid proof to establish a strong correlation between skateboarding and decline in business, how and to what extent its prohibition can restore the business. As it stands, however, the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-25 | lanhhoang | 68 | view |
| 2020-01-07 | Jai1332 | 63 | view |
| 2019-12-03 | harshit kukreja | 69 | view |
| 2019-06-26 | Primace | 43 | view |
| 2019-06-10 | pallavipolas | 55 | view |
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 488, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y numbers to show the rate of decrease. Secondly, the conclusion is based on wha...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 122, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ness in Central Plaza would be restored, without giving any solid proof. Business...
^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'first', 'firstly', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'regarding', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then', 'third', 'thirdly', 'as to', 'in addition', 'in conclusion']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.272727272727 0.25644967241 106% => OK
Verbs: 0.198181818182 0.15541462614 128% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0581818181818 0.0836205057962 70% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0290909090909 0.0520304965353 56% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0145454545455 0.0272364105082 53% => OK
Prepositions: 0.112727272727 0.125424944231 90% => OK
Participles: 0.0727272727273 0.0416121511921 175% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.07682050353 2.79052419416 110% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0309090909091 0.026700313972 116% => OK
Particles: 0.00181818181818 0.001811407834 100% => OK
Determiners: 0.107272727273 0.113004496875 95% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0218181818182 0.0255425247493 85% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0127272727273 0.0127820249294 100% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3168.0 2731.13054187 116% => OK
No of words: 483.0 446.07635468 108% => OK
Chars per words: 6.55900621118 6.12365571057 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.57801047555 102% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.428571428571 0.378187486979 113% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.349896480331 0.287650121315 122% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.260869565217 0.208842608468 125% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.180124223602 0.135150697306 133% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07682050353 2.79052419416 110% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 207.018472906 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.426501035197 0.469332199767 91% => OK
Word variations: 47.8431147096 52.1807786196 92% => OK
How many sentences: 23.0 20.039408867 115% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.2022227129 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.6576136562 57.7814097925 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.739130435 141.986410481 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.2022227129 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.695652173913 0.724660767414 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 3.58251231527 56% => OK
Readability: 55.9896480331 51.9672348444 108% => OK
Elegance: 1.89473684211 1.8405768891 103% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.52139047284 0.441005458295 118% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.13251799273 0.135418324435 98% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0630574894385 0.0829849096947 76% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.585114468769 0.58762219726 100% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.125711174056 0.147661913831 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.233602632752 0.193483328276 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0851205046312 0.0970749176394 88% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.392372273212 0.42659136922 92% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0814261435534 0.0774707102158 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.370963501795 0.312017818177 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0649645490817 0.0698173142475 93% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.33743842365 120% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.87684729064 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 9.0 6.46551724138 139% => OK
Negative topic words: 9.0 5.36822660099 168% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 20.0 14.657635468 136% => OK
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Rates: 79.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.75 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations to cover all aspects.