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.
There is a myth that the scent of lavender flowers is an effective way to cure insomnia. The author agrees with this argument; however, they drew a strong conclusion based on weak evidence. To make their argument stronger, the author should include studies that include different methods that produces the scent of lavender, the type of lifestyle the participants have.
Firstly, the author only talks about one study; even then, the description of the study weakens the author’s conclusion. The study mentions how the participants were on sleep medication and reported feeling tired the first two weeks. The author uses this study to prove that because of the lavender scented pillows, it helped the participants with their insomnia. Due to the fact that they were on sleeping medication, it does not help the author’s argument. Medication is meant to be weaned off little by little, not suddenly cut off. This could be the cause for the participants feeling tired the first two weeks of the study. The author could have made their argument stronger if they used a study that had participants who were not on sleeping medication.
To make their argument stronger, the author could have included studies that included different methods that produced the scent of lavender. For example, candles, incense, humidifier, etc. If the author was able to provide studies that used these methods, it would have made their argument more sound.
Furthermore, the author should have taken into account the lifestyle of the participants in the studies. For example, diet could result in insomnia. When drinking caffeine before bed, it could hinder the sleep pattern of a person. Instead of using lavender scents to them fall asleep, a more simple way to solve this problem is to stop drinking caffeine before sleeping. Another example is working late hours. This could throw off the internal clock of a person.
The author makes a strong conclusion that lavender scents can cure insomnia in a short amount of time. Although the author provides a study to support their view on the issue, they ignored the fact of how the sudden stop of sleep medication could have influenced the study. To make their argument stronger, the author should have included studies that used different producers of lavender scents and took into account the lifestyle of people with insomnia. In its current form, the author’s argument is unsubstantial and flawed.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, so, then, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2067.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 399.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18045112782 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46933824581 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61474746215 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.453634085213 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 616.5 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.1101507925 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.8695652174 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.347826087 23.324526521 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.73913043478 5.70786347227 48% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.148005748258 0.218282227539 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.057690383824 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.077121578751 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10177858268 0.128457276422 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0359133452028 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.