A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. The twenty-year study found a correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by study participants. At the time when the study concluded, food-processing companies had just discovered that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and, as a result, many companies plan to do so. Based on these study results, some health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future.
Given the circumstances that commercial use of salicylates has aided in bringing down the number of reports of headache and the chemical’s familiarity with aspirin, a medicine used to treat headache, it may be tempting to conclude that its use by food-processing companies would aid in reducing the cases of headache furthermore. However, deep-down the conclusion seems to be based on self-proclaimed assumptions, that makes it easier for anyone cast doubt on conclusion itself.
The argument mentions that there was a “correlation between the rise in commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in number of headaches reported”, but in conclusion it suggests that further decline in headache reports will be driven by increased use of salicylates in food processing. We can easily point out that the study that is supposed to bolster the argument’s conclusion is only focused on commercial use of salicylate. Never does it mention that the commercial use is applied in food-processing industry. It might be the case that commercial use of salicylate as a tablet itself would have driven down the number of reports of headache. So, if the commercial use of salicylate was done in any other way, would it be reliable to draw the conclusion that it’s use in food-processing industry would decrease the number of headache? Obviously not. Moreover, the argument also mentions that most of the naturally occurring food contain salicylate, and if that was the case, there should have been reduction in number of headache naturally, without using it commercially. So, it might be the case that salicylate would not be effective while consuming it with any dietary supplements.
Similarly, the research that was carried out in Menita doesn’t mention the type of individuals that were involved in the study; whether those individuals were representative of that study area. If the population taken for the study was biased (only woman or people from only certain age group), the conclusion of the study would be unreliable. If individuals from only certain age groups were selected for the study, for instance, it might be the case that salicylate consumption would be coincidentally beneficial for that age group, and not effective to others. This would make the conclusion of the argument very unlikely in the future.
Finally, though from bird’s-eye view it is likely that inclusion of salicylate in food processing would bring down the number of headache reported, the assumption made in the argument should be supported by well-documented evidences, and then only draw the conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 15 15
No. of Words: 417 350
No. of Characters: 2128 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.519 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.103 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.02 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.988 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.385 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 38, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... The argument mentions that there was a 'correlation between the rise in c...
^
Line 5, column 24, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y supplements. Similarly, the research that was carried out in Menita doesn&apo...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, furthermore, however, if, incidentally, may, moreover, similarly, so, then, well, while, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2218.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34457831325 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.27624545689 2.78398813304 118% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.457831325301 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 705.6 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 85.1843491102 57.8364921388 147% => OK
Chars per sentence: 158.428571429 119.503703932 133% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.6428571429 23.324526521 127% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.71428571429 5.70786347227 170% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More 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: 0.135172130027 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0519156496589 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0458543797855 0.0701772020484 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0865229246631 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.04596508787 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.5 14.3799401198 129% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.58 48.3550499002 69% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.28 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => 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.