The following appeared in a business magazine.
"As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of
Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for
testing. Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk. This
conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from
Promofoods; the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for
causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The
chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out
that these occur naturally in all canned foods."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to
decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure
to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
The author concludes that the canned tuna of Promofoods did not pose a health risk. The conclusion is mainly based on that the chemists performed tests on samples of the recalled cans and found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans, while small amounts of the three remaining were found but they occur naturally in all canned foods. Nevertheless, some questions should be addressed before the author proves the validity of the argument.
The author mentions that the chemists reported that five of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea were not found in any of the tested cans. However, he fails to prove the reliability of the chemists’ reports as well as the representativeness of the samples without some questions being answered. Did the chemists actually tell the whole truth? Not exactly. In all likelihood, they may conceal the real results of the test due that they are enforced by the company to lie. It is also possible that the real results may jeopardize the reputation of the company , which may engender it to confront the trust crisis, so the chemists choose to conceal the truth in case of the bankruptcy of the company. In addition, can the samples tested be representative of all canned tuna? It is not ascertained that the samples are randomly selected. It is totally probable that the samples are deliberately selected from the ones that were proved to be harmless in the previous tests, thus it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the general condition of them merely by the results from these dubious samples. Therefore, answering the aforementioned questions might more defensibly reinforce the argument.
The author also demonstrates that small amount of the three harmful food chemicals were found in the tests but they occur naturally in all canned foods, and infers that they cannot cause dizziness and nausea. However, this result, in itself, cannot sufficiently substantiate the inference without some questions being addressed. The exact amount of them and the general standard of these chemicals’ amount are not provided. It is entirely possible that the canned tuna of Promofoods contains ten milligram these chemicals, while in the ones from other companies, their amount is only one milligram, which means that the amount of the chemical is, though small, excessive compared to the general amount in the market. Hence, the argument is unjustifiable without some questions being addressed.
On the basis that the results of the tests are reliable and the tuna cannot cause dizziness and nausea, it is still hasty for the author to conclude that the canned tuna of Promofoods did not pose a health risk. Even though the cans are irrelevant with dizziness and nausea, they are also likely to be responsible for some other health problems, such as obesity. It is also probable that they contain excessive additives and preservatives, which can also post health risk. Therefore, without some questions being addressed, the author fails to substantiate his conclusion.
To sum up, although the conclusion may be comprehensive, some questions need to be addressed. Had the author delivered more answers to the questions, the conclusion and the whole argument might be more defensible.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 552 350
No. of Characters: 2769 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.847 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.016 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.697 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.483 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 617, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...jeopardize the reputation of the company , which may engender it to confront the t...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, hence, however, if, may, nevertheless, so, still, therefore, thus, well, while, in addition, such as, as well as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2858.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 552.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17753623188 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84713113593 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81188082491 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.405797101449 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 869.4 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 81.7752573113 57.8364921388 141% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.260869565 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.26086956522 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
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: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.189672073439 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.059175831665 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0640175111003 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122037305017 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0511598905536 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.