The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Smith Jones.
"In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones plans to build a multi-million dollar subway system. The subway will run through the major downtown areas, a part of the town where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. For years, residents have been complaining both about inconsistent buses, and the general lack of safety while riding the buses. Additionally, the subway will be running twenty-four hours a day. Since motorists will spend less time in traffic, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones expects to see an immediate increase in worker productivity, which will improve the economy of Briggsville."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
Traffic jams and inconsistent public transportation service are two major issues that residents of large cities have to suffer. Briggsville is not an exception, and Mayor Harrison Smith Jones proposes a plan to build a multi-million dollar subway system in order to deal with the heavy traffic. He argues that the subway which connects major downtown areas and operates twenty-four hours a day will become a credible alternative to the bus service – the one which citizens criticize for inconsistency and unsafety. The mayor claims that the convenient and time-saving subway service will boost productivity of employees making the whole economy of the city more prospering and lucrative. However, this argument hinges on an array of assumptions. Thus, while evaluating this argument it is crucial to understand what these assumptions are.
The quality of bus service is the main rationale behind the subway construction initiative. As the justification of his decision the mayor uses information on inconsistency of buses which draws outrage of residents. This assumption means that a lot of residents will prefer new subway service to buses, yet it takes into consideration bus users only. On the one hand, if this assumption holds true the decreasing demand in the bus service caused by the increase in subway users might be the reason to cut on the number of buses that operate in areas with heavy traffic. Nevertheless, the mayor ignores to what extent users of personal cars or the taxi service might also be interested in the subway. If they prefer these means of transportation because of unsatisfactory bus service only, they might be interested in a cheaper public service. Otherwise, if they care more, for instance, about comfort and have a lot of apprehensions about public transportation, they might not be interested in the subway at all.
The argument also claims that the subway will run through major downtown areas where buses serve as the only form of public transportation. In other words, the assumption is that the enhancement of public transportation service in the downtown area only is enough to resolve the issue of traffic congestion of the whole city. It seems that it might help to decrease the number of cars in the city center during the day, since residents will be able to move around using the subway service which is planned to be widely available in the downtown. Though this assumption does not take into consideration distant areas from where people regularly set off. If the public transportation in these areas is substandard, and the only option people have to commute by is personal cars or the taxi service, the subway in downtown will not help them to get to work.
Finally, the mayor concludes that one of the major outcomes of the subway construction is the increase in productivity of Briggsville's economy, yet it might hold true if one assumption proves warranted. The argument is that residents will be satisfied with the subway service when it will start to operate. The mayor takes into consideration the inconsistency of public transportation and its unsafety as the major factors of dissatisfaction and might assume that twenty-four hours service will deal with it. However, if the vast majority of citizens begin to use the subway service at the particular time of the day – e.g. in early morning on working days - it might end up with crowds of people on stations, lines to take the train and overloaded carriages.
After all there is strong assumption that the employees’ productivity hinges upon the time they spend to get to work. On the one hand, it sounds cogent, as people do not have to wake up early or spend a lot of time in traffic jams. At the same time, this assumption does not consider working conditions that might be more overwhelming and then hinder an outstanding job performance.
Summing up, the plan to construct the subway proposed by Mayor Harrison Smith Jones in order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion might change the status quo. However, there are a couple of strong assumptions that need to be clarified in advance. Despite the fact that many residents who dissatisfied with bus service there are driver and users of the taxi service who might have different qualms about the public transportation service. It is also significant to take into consideration that few people have to commute and come to the downtown from distant areas, so the construction project should also consider these inflows to the city center. Finally, the assumption that satisfaction with traffic correlates with the productivity of the whole city might be a slight exaggeration, yet there is a grind of truth.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
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| 2019-10-26 | Bla_Bla_Bla | 69 | view |
| 2019-09-10 | Sydp | 50 | view |
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- Claim The best test of an argument is its ability to convince someone with an opposing viewpoint Reason Only by being forced to defend an idea against the doubts and contrasting views of others does one really discover the value of that idea Write a respo 66
- The following is a memorandum from the office of Mayor Harrison Smith Jones."In order to relieve Briggsville’s notorious traffic congestion, Mayor Harrison Smith Jones plans to build a multi-million dollar subway system. The subway will run through 69
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: 30 15
No. of Words: 774 350
No. of Characters: 3847 1500
No. of Different Words: 288 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.275 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.97 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.884 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 258 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 186 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 128 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 95 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.631 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.496 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 93, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ind the subway construction initiative. As the justification of his decision the m...
^^
Line 5, column 716, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this means' or 'these means'?
Suggestion: this means; these means
...nterested in the subway. If they prefer these means of transportation because of unsatisfac...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 547, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Though” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...to be widely available in the downtown. Though this assumption does not take into cons...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, e.g., finally, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, then, thus, while, after all, for instance, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 26.0 13.6137724551 191% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 120.0 55.5748502994 216% => Less preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 39.0 16.3942115768 238% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3954.0 2260.96107784 175% => OK
No of words: 776.0 441.139720559 176% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09536082474 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.27795192801 4.56307096286 116% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97573456454 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 308.0 204.123752495 151% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.396907216495 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1233.0 705.55239521 175% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.72392831 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.8 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8666666667 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.83333333333 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.211447535479 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0669646184486 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.105096376116 0.0701772020484 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12234423506 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0704155932486 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 147.0 98.500998004 149% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.