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 maintains that the activity in Central Plaza has decreased due to the increased presence of skateboarders, thus the city should not allow skateboarding in the plaza. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention key factors, creating a discrepancy in the author’s claim. To support this argument, the author reasons that, not only has the increase in skateboarding led to fewer shoppers, but has also led to the increase in litter and vandalism present in the plaza. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence provides little credible support for the author’s intended results. Hence the argument can be considered lacking and unsubstantiated.
First of all, the author assumes that the skateboarding activity is the main reason for the decline in shopping activity; possibly because of the repellant effect the skateboarders have on the public. This is merely a baseless assumption made without solid ground. Accordingly, it would be necessary to know from the customers themselves if the reason that they’ve stopped shopping at the plaza is due to the skateboarders. For example, the people who used to shop at the plaza might have stopped coming for a different reason altogether. If it was determined that shoppers were going to a nearby plaza, then prohibiting skateboarding would not increase the number of shoppers.
Moreover, the argument claims that there is an increase in trash and vandalism of the plaza which would decrease if a restriction on skateboarding were placed. This again is a weak unsupported claim as it is unsuccessful in drawing a correlation between the skateboarders actually contributing to the litter and vandalism themselves. If the argument provided evidence, that the skateboarders were seen littering and vandalizing the area by the shopkeepers and customers then it would be more convincing to the reader that banning skateboarding to put an end to this disruption. However, if this was not the case and it was found to be a different group of people, then vandalization and the appearance of the plaza would continue to suffer after the prohibition is passed.
Finally, the author believes that the activity levels of the plaza will return to its high levels as it was two years ago. Where have the shoppers been going in the meantime? Have they been lured by internet shopping due to greater convenience and lower prices compared to shops in the plaza? A lack of answers to these questions gives the impression that the claim that the plaza will return to its former popularity is more wishful thinking than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the author’s flawed argument stemming from the aforementioned reasons is therefore questionable. It could be considerably strengthened if the author provided more concrete evidence, perhaps by a survey of the past and present customers on their reasons for or for not shopping at the plaza. Ultimately, to better evaluate the recommendation that skateboarders should not be allowed to skate at the plaza, it is necessary to have full knowledge of the events taking place is negatively affecting activity levels. Consequently, without this information, the recommendation remains equivocal and open to debate.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-15 | savikx | 77 | view |
| 2020-01-06 | stevewang1007 | 66 | view |
| 2019-12-23 | Pranjil | 75 | view |
| 2019-12-05 | sagar2052 | 69 | view |
| 2019-12-04 | Md. Kawsar Ahmed | 46 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2645 1500
No. of Different Words: 235 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.136 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.022 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 195 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.409 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.008 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 603, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...for the author's intended results. Hence the argument can be considered lacking ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, also, but, consequently, finally, first, hence, however, if, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, for example, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2731.0 2260.96107784 121% => OK
No of words: 514.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.31322957198 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76146701107 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.16947089136 2.78398813304 114% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470817120623 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 845.1 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4293425267 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.136363636 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.3636363636 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.31818181818 5.70786347227 128% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.197497642021 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0615963603449 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0572598989634 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113782843065 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0230514576014 0.0628817314937 37% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.86 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.