An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
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.
Lavender has been traditionally used by cultures as a ancient prescription for insomnia, however after examining the aforementioned text which states that lavender flowers has been proven by modern science as a effective cure for insomnia is unfortunately tenable due to dearth of further evidence and also suffers from logical errors.
First of all, the author fails to provide proof that in a way involves a control group which is standard in modern medicine experiments, where the experiment conductors add in another group of which patients suffer from the same symptoms of the same magnitude. In that it would then show how lavender scent really acts on a human body in comparison to the control group, furthermore since the normal medication also affects the patients’ sleep condition so it is also essential to add in a base group, which consists of normal healthy human beings who do not suffer from insomnia or any other related symptoms at all. In absence of any single group the experiment itself will be nothing more than futile and in turn we won’t ever sufficiently prove the author’s claim.
I also feel the need to point out that we see in the initial response from patients in this experiment during the first week, there are signs of aggravation of symptoms which manifest itself as patients feeling tired after getting up despite better quality at sleeping, which simply belies the canonical common sense: If you sleep better, you are going to wake up felling more energized and not the other way around. The researchers should find out the cause of this negative condition and how to circumvent it, as the general public is not aware if this natural remedy could bring any potential side effects with itself and this could easily dissuade the customers from adopting this ancient medication and not to mention the fact that this could also nullify lavender’s curing effect on insomnia.
To end with, the author ought to also supply evidence that lavender scent works well on insomnia patients over a longer period of time. And a total of 30 persons in the trial is relatively small and therefore it won’t accurately and adequately represent all patients with insomnia until additional trials were conducted in corroboration with this initial result. Insomnia is undoubtedly a chronic disease, thus merely three weeks of time with a gradual improvement of outcome does not address any prospects of curing, if there ever will be, over the long run. Therefore this debate regarding whether lavender flowers can cure modern insomnia still goes on and will remain this way if there were no additional evidence of the aforementioned kind emerges.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 10 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2195 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.944 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.601 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 44.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 16.132 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.9 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.393 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.655 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 53, 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
... been traditionally used by cultures as a ancient prescription for insomnia, howe...
^
Line 1, column 210, 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
...rs has been proven by modern science as a effective cure for insomnia is unfortun...
^
Line 2, column 461, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ts the patients' sleep condition so it is also essential to add in a base gr...
^^
Line 3, column 521, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
...dition and how to circumvent it, as the general public is not aware if this natural remedy cou...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 122, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...well on insomnia patients over a longer period of time. And a total of 30 persons in the trial...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 566, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
... there ever will be, over the long run. Therefore this debate regarding whether lavender ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 760, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nce of the aforementioned kind emerges.
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, really, regarding, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2253.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 442.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09728506787 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58517132086 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73026683589 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.549773755656 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 711.9 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 19.7664670659 51% => 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: 44.0 22.8473053892 193% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 95.2598551332 57.8364921388 165% => OK
Chars per sentence: 225.3 119.503703932 189% => OK
Words per sentence: 44.2 23.324526521 190% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0 5.70786347227 193% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.212705924209 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0897581471369 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0693931066647 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143069761723 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0827194151049 0.0628817314937 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 24.7 14.3799401198 172% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 26.82 48.3550499002 55% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 20.5 12.197005988 168% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.19 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.75 8.32208582834 117% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 19.6 11.1389221557 176% => OK
text_standard: 25.0 11.9071856287 210% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
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.