The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
The author claims that enforcing a constraint on the number of mopeds being rented out by every rental company will lead to fifty percent reduction in accidents on Balmer island. Stated this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and evidence. To justify the recommendation, the reasons that neighboring island of Seaville had seen a 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents after enforcing similar limits on moped rentals. However, careful scrutiny of this line of reasoning reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s recommendation.
First of all, the author assumed that moped as a vehicle by itself is solely responsible for the accidents. He/she did not take into account for factors such as reduced visibility during the nights, lack of streetlights, poorly constructed roads with ditches to name just a few. Due to the lack of proper light during the night, a fast motorist could lose the sense of direction and with a speed breaker ahead, he could easily lose balance. Presence of unsealed manholes could be another factor for accidents. With the addition of rain and no streetlights along the way, the vehicle could fall into the manhole. A better recommendation in a such a scenario would be to close the potholes, put up streetlights and repair the badly constructed roads to ensure safety of the citizens.
Furthermore, moped could probably be the best mode of transportation in the island. Moped could be the most affordable form of transportation. Perhaps the island’s roads are not wide or safe enough for cars or trucks. Limiting the number of mopeds in such a case might agitate people and could result in violent protests. The author needs to look at people’s interests as well before coming a to a solid conclusion.
Finally, the author cites a similar policy enforced in a neighboring island as a support for the suggested recommendation. Following reduced number of accidents after limiting the number of vehicles rented out by the rental companies in Seaville, the author proposes Balmer island does the same. However, if the causes for accidents on Seaville do not coincide with that of Balmer island, this proposal would remain irrelevant. Seaville might have well-built roads, streetlights, sealed potholes and hence the only way accidents can happen is by rash driving of a motorist. But if that is not the case with Balmer island, then the recommendation would do not affect the number of accidents on the island.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must offer more concrete evidence, perhaps by the way of a reliable geographical survey of health of roads, examination of similarities between infrastructure of Seaville and Balmer and inclinations of people towards a possible recommendation. Until then, the stated recommendation will remain unsubstantiated and impertinent.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- duplicated to argument 1.
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 23 15
No. of Words: 471 350
No. of Characters: 2401 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.659 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.098 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.926 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 196 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.478 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.107 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.522 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.505 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, look, so, then, well, in conclusion, such as, by the way, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2486.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 470.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28936170213 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65612321451 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.09988828491 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.504255319149 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 763.2 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.9949713917 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.086956522 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4347826087 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.39130434783 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.20158413972 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0615325236439 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0719806831724 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112377680447 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0803737684378 0.0628817314937 128% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.