The following is a petition to the city council of Centerville:
"Over the past three years, there has been a marked increase in cases of 'sidewalk rage,' similar to the irrational anger drivers experience on the road, but instead among sidewalk walkers. The result is an increase in assaults, property damage, and disruptions of normal pedestrian traffic. In order to address this growing problem, the council must ban cell phone use on sidewalks. Not only do people texting or using their phones slow down pedestrian traffic, but they are also more likely to walk into the road or bump into other walkers. Children are especially vulnerable because they are too short to be easily seen. Middletown passed such a ban and not only have they heard no complaints, but the reported incidents of sidewalk crime has gone down significantly."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
Over a few years, there has been an increasing number of complaints of sidewalk rages in the city of Centerville--sidewalk rage is very similar to irrational anger drivers experience where the driver gets frustrated and throws a tantrum about slow-moving cars. To resolve this issue the author of the argument provides a tenet to pass an embargo on using cell phones while walking on the sidewalk.
The following argument is flawed for numerous reasons, primarily due to an assumption that the city of Centerville and Middletown are same, rendering its main conclusion that the number of complaints is going to decrease as a result of banning the usage of cell phones while walking. The author claims that there were no complaints of sidewalk crimes after passing an embargo on the usage of cell phones on sidewalks, but the argument fails to provide the data on the number of complaints reported before making usage cell phones reclusive on sidewalks.
Adding, the author fails to account the number of people who use the sidewalk. It is plausible that in Middletown there are very few pedestrians which makes the sidewalks secluded. The heretofore shows that banning cell phones never really affected the sidewalk rage, as there weren't any or very few in the first place.
The argument claims using phones slow down pedestrian traffic which may not be true, a person listening to songs would still move at the same pace as he would move if he were not listening to songs. There may also be a dire need to use the cell phone like attending an important phone call or using maps to navigate to the desired location.
By considering the aforementioned points we can consider that the argument is fallacious. Having said that the argument can be made more persuasive by incorporating the following suggestions: First, there should a clear number, of crimes reported after the ban and before the ban--which gives a picture if the ban was actually the reason for no sidewalk rages. Adding, a comparison of the number of people using the sidewalk in the City of Centerville and Middletown must be done.
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e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 524 350
No. of Characters: 2528 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.784 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.824 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.598 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.579 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.771 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.526 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.567 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 278, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: weren't
...ly affected the sidewalk rage, as there werent any or very few in the first place. ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, really, so, still, then, while, in conclusion, as a result, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2607.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 521.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00383877159 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77759609229 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81109367221 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.468330134357 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 823.5 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 80.2199907354 57.8364921388 139% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.833333333 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.9444444444 23.324526521 124% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.38888888889 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 8.0 5.15768463074 155% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.266958001428 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.095104885822 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.168345834076 0.0701772020484 240% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133203617018 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.114290807423 0.0628817314937 182% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.