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 slee

Essay topics:

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 argument which concludes that lavender flowers, an ancient traditional remedy cures insomnia within a short period of time is rife with flawed assumptions like the 30 people involved in the study are representative of the entire population, 3 weeks is sufficient enough time to observe the impact of the study and there might are no other external factors affecting the study.

Firstly, the study concludes that the 30 people considered for the study to observe the effects of lavender scents on insomnia are representative of the entire human population, which might not be the case. The data considered for such a small set of people might not give very reliable results as the people themselves might be facing some of the other difficulties affecting their sleep like anxiety or fear due to some of the life experiences which they are currently going through. This indicates that in order to get more reliable data more than 30 people are needed to be included in the study of various different characteristics, ages, and gender mix.

Secondly, the study does not mention any pieces of evidence as to why the volunteers were taking the medication in the first place, did they have permanent insomnia or it was due to transitory situation because of the difficulties they were facing in the life. If latter was the case, the study claiming that lavender curing the insomnia in short time does not hold water, as the volunteers themselves are going through the insomnia for a shorter period of time.

Lastly, the study does however, mentions about the controlled room, but does not provide the evidence about the degree of control it has on the room or the different factors that are under control. This raises another question what if they are other factors affecting the volunteer's sleep and in turn corrupting the study’s purpose. External factors can be various like tiredness, stress and workload of the volunteers affecting their sleep. Do all of the volunteers exercise, if some exercise are they being treated differently when considering their sleep schedule, all this information is crucial as ignoring any of these factors(also given the smaller volunteers size of 30) will lead to easier corruption of the study’s purpose.

To Conclude the people who have conducted the study need to provide the information regarding the above three issues raised and ensure none of the external entities would not affect or give a chance to tamper with the study’s result, which in turn would strengthen its argument.

Votes
Average: 5.8 (2 votes)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 113, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...al remedy cures insomnia within a short period of time is rife with flawed assumptions like th...
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Line 3, column 337, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...s the people themselves might be facing some of the other difficulties affecting their slee...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 418, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...their sleep like anxiety or fear due to some of the life experiences which they are current...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 448, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...oing through the insomnia for a shorter period of time. Lastly, the study does however, men...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 446, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...he volunteers affecting their sleep. Do all of the volunteers exercise, if some exercise a...
^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, as to, in short, in the first place

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2119.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06937799043 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70060940038 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.478468899522 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 661.5 705.55239521 94% => 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: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 19.7664670659 56% => 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: 38.0 22.8473053892 166% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 74.6894396598 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 192.636363636 119.503703932 161% => OK
Words per sentence: 38.0 23.324526521 163% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0909090909 5.70786347227 194% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.238961948188 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0956213040116 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0707419600587 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128731400282 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0430173887051 0.0628817314937 68% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 21.4 14.3799401198 149% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 32.91 48.3550499002 68% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 18.1 12.197005988 148% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.72 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.15 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 17.2 11.1389221557 154% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => 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.

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 2070 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.952 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.637 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 38 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.606 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.437 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.695 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.155 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5