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.
In the given argument the writer talks about remedy for insomnia, which is a state of sleeplessness. The writer shows supporting studies to prove their stance but there are loopholes which makes it weaken. The research was done under controlled conditions to prove that lavender cures the insomnia but at the end it seems that lavender is just displacement of medication. There are points indicate the weaker side of the given argument.
Moreover, the studies concluded that lavender cure insomnia within short period of time but there is another significant conclusion which shows that lavender is just a displacement of medication not cure it completely. In three weeks process firstly the researcher gives medication and lavender pillow and they slept soundly, then in second week only lavender pillow had been given and disturbances noticed in the sleep. After at the end in third week with only lavender pillow they slept soundly. This is called gradual shifting of attention from medication to lavender pillow, but it does not indicate that insomnia patients will sleep calmly without lavender pillow.
Furthermore, there are two more points, first of them is the supporting study of argument done on 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia which is very small sample to generalize the results. Secondly, the three weeks observation did in controlled room and its after effects were not discussed. It is not clearly mentioned whether the volunteers keep practicing lavender pillow or they started medication. The researcher did hurry to jump to the conclusion.
Finally, the research has done under controlled conditions in a room where temperature, ambiance, weather, presence of bugs, lights and others keep constant to get better results. It is not necessary that all sufferer of insomnia can successfully maintain these variables constant. It may be possible that after three weeks voluntaries need medication again to sleep. There is no evidence of post conditions of volunteers which weaken the given argument. To increase the validity of research one should keep observation on after effects of experiment.
To sum up, according to the above information, the argument would be specious. To appraise the argument fairly, the author should provide more detailed evidence to bolster the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 30 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1902 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.24 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.703 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.105 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.355 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 74, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...hat lavender cure insomnia within short period of time but there is another significant conclu...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 422, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “After” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... and disturbances noticed in the sleep. After at the end in third week with only lave...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 80, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...mation, the argument would be specious. To appraise the argument fairly, the autho...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, in short, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1952.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 363.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.37741046832 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3649236973 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80528165116 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.512396694215 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 593.1 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.6404639867 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.736842105 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1052631579 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.10526315789 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => 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: 0.28254889524 0.218282227539 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0778182543131 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0656595565443 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138795162446 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0875980468025 0.0628817314937 139% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.