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.
In this argument, the author claims that the scent of lavender flowers which is traditional remedy for insomnia is effective to cure of insomnia within a short period time. To support her argument, she cited a research which do experiment to 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia. According to the research, the patients sleep with the <span style="font-size: 19.36px;">scent of </span>lavender in a room with their usual sleeping medication. And they slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At second week, they discontinued sleeping medication with continuing other conditions and they felt more tired. At last week, they slept longer and more soundly than previous two weeks. Careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical flaws.
To begin with, based on the fact the patient make less sound than first week, the author assumes that this phenomenon is better state of patient, in that, it is most important symptom which can show the degree of insomnia. However, it could not be true. For example, feeling tired could be more important symptom of insomnia or other symptom such as brain wave or the rate of heartbeat could be more important. If this is true we cannot convinced by this argument.
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Secondly, even if we admit that the degree of making sound is most indicative symptom of insomnia, there is another problem. Based on the fact that the patient make less sound at second week, the author hastily assumes that this state results from treatment of lavender scent. However, there is possibility that the result of second week is not because of the scent of lavender. For example, the discontinuing of their sleeping medication can be affect to the research or their higher tiredness at second week than first week could be reason. If she cannot explain why she thinks the scent of lavender works well on patient, this argument is still not cogent.
Finally, even if other logical problem is true, this argument still looks like groundless. Only based on the fact that making sound is less during two weeks, the author wrongly use the word, "cure". Common sense tells us that the word-cure-means that a disease totally vanish. But, at third week, the patients make more noise and have longer sleeping than before because of accumulated tiredness.
To summarize, this argument still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, the author have to explain why she thinks that degree of making sound during sleeping can most indicate quality of sleeping and have to do experiment again by designating control group and experimental group which are difference in treatment of lavender. To rate this argument better, we have to know that why she thinks the lavender can cure the disease
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2210 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.857 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.399 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: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.783 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.829 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.459 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 403, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... 19.36px;'>scent of lavender in a room with their usual sleeping medi...
^^
Line 1, column 523, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ened feeling tired. At second week, they discontinued sleeping medication with co...
^^
Line 3, column 412, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” 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.
...e of heartbeat could be more important. If this is true we cannot convinced by thi...
^^
Line 9, column 351, 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.
...re difference in treatment of lavender. To rate this argument better, we have to k...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, look, second, secondly, so, still, third, well, for example, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2306.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 451.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11308203991 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60833598836 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79462733425 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445676274945 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 679.5 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.22255489022 261% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 59.0535625633 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.260869565 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6086956522 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.08695652174 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.179872419332 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0557185201257 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0662002812719 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.104387144339 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0908686503994 0.0628817314937 145% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.