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.
The arguments states that a traditional remedy for insomnia has now been proved effective but fails to prove its efficacy. More information is needed to evaluate the argument further.
Firstly, the argument states that in a recent study there were 30 volunteers. But, it is not mentioned if this sample size is justified or not. No information on the population size is given. It may be possible that this sample size of 30 volunteers is not representative of the large pool of insomnia patients. Conducting a study on a very small sample population will lead to wrong inferences being drawn and compromise the objective of the study. Other factors such as genetics, gender, age etc are also not specifed anywhere. For an impartial study, the voulnteers should be heterogenous so that meaningful conslusions can be drawn.
Secondly, we do not know for sure about the side effects of the sleeping medication. In the first and second week of the study, the volunteers were feeling tired after waking up. We cannot rule out the effects of the sleeping medication on these insomnia patients without complete informatiom. Maybe in the third week, some particpants continued the sleeping medication but its effects started to wear off. In such a case more evidence is needed to prove the results of the study. Nothing about the dosage of the medicine is also stated in the argument. If the volunteers are already taking a stong dosage of sleeping medication, then the secnt of lavneder will prove to be futile to make them fall asleep.
Thirdly, there are no other factors mentioned about the volunteers in the study. We do not know for a fact if they were feeling tired in the third week too or not. Furthermore, no information is given on the workout patterns and eating habits of the volunteers which have a direct correlation with the sleep of a person at night. If the volunteers were physically exerted, then they will automatically feel tired and sleepy at night. Thus, the scent of lavender will serve no purpose even in a controlled environment. Similary, eating more will lead to more sleep and eating less will lead to starvation and less sleep. Another factor which should be taken into account is their sleep during the day-even for a few minutes.
Hence, the scent of lavneder may not be the most effective way to make insomnia patients fall asleep until further information is not revealed. .
Comments
e-rater score 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: 24 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 1949 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.777 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.656 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.924 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.708 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.48 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 15, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'state'.
Suggestion: state
The arguments states that a traditional remedy for insomnia ...
^^^^^^
Line 10, column 145, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...il further information is not revealed. .
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2007.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.91911764706 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73451743812 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502450980392 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 630.0 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.4316534062 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 83.625 119.503703932 70% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.0 23.324526521 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.70833333333 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.22206967834 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0575465937294 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0612292014542 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128983262956 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0456035551417 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.2 14.3799401198 71% => 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: 10.96 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
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: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.