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.
In this argument, the company claimed that the canned tuna ,based on the results of chemicals analysis of Promofoods chemists, did not pose a health risk. However, the argument that provides support for the conclusion is highly doubtful and certain questions about the argument need to be addressed for a more reasonable evaluation of the conclusion.
To begin with, the validity of the sampling methodology conducted at Promodfoods is doubtful. The public can’t know how many canned foods are produced in one day. In other words, the information about the total production quantity is lacking. If the number of cans produced in one year is more than 8 million drastically, the 8 million cans would just not enough to be a valid sampling quantity. For example, canned foods are always produced in bulk, far more than the number returned for testing such as 8 trillion per year. Thus, without accurate information of total cans quantity, it is impossible to assess the results reasonably.
Next, even if the 8 million samples are enough to indicate real problems, we still need to ask whether there are other chemicals beyond the 8 commonly known that could also cause dizziness or nausea. If only those 8 chemicals are considered, other chemicals that could potentially cause the same symptoms will be ignored. For instance, dizziness or nausea may be caused by other serious viruses, which might be caused by contaminated cans during manufacturing. In other words, there is no evidence to indicate that the shown symptoms and 8 chemicals have a direct cause and effect relationship.
Finally, the question concerning the 3 chemicals found in the samples is raised. This may be true that they exist naturally in all canned foods. Nonetheless, the safety threshold of daily intake was not provided, so the public can’t know eating how many cans is safe per day. For example, the combination of the quantity of the chemicals of two or more cans will exceed the daily safety threshold and then cause the symptom of dizziness or nausea. To make it more convincing, a safety threshold should be provided, because the public can know that what amount of cans eating daily is safe.
In conclusion, the argument from Promofoods is not convincing as it represents. To reinforce the statement, Promofoods should make the total production quantity known and must provide safety threshold information, but not just pointed out these occur naturally in all cans. Therefore, if the questions above discussion can be answered, the conclusion will be more cogent.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 2078 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.948 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.155 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In this argument, the company claimed th...
^^
Line 1, column 61, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...the company claimed that the canned tuna ,based on the results of chemicals analys...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...onable evaluation of the conclusion. To begin with, the validity of the sampl...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...le to assess the results reasonably. Next, even if the 8 million samples are ...
^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...irect cause and effect relationship. Finally, the question concerning the 3 c...
^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...amount of cans eating daily is safe. In conclusion, the argument from Promofo...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, may, nonetheless, so, still, then, therefore, thus, for example, for instance, in conclusion, such as, in other words, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2146.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 420.0 441.139720559 95% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10952380952 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52701905584 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78863908323 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.485714285714 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 656.1 705.55239521 93% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.4769815681 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.3 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.25 5.70786347227 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.207423208954 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0638874009412 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0481496531856 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116585167823 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0267744847732 0.0628817314937 43% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.