An ancient, traditional treatment to help reduce obesity-coconut oil- has recently been proven effective. In a study completed last year, 50 volunteers were fed a special diet rich in coconut oil for two weeks. No volunteer was allowed to eat outside food during the trial, and each volunteer had his or weight measured several times each day. After 2 weeks, the volunteers had lost an average of 8 pounds each. Therefore, the study proves that coconut oil reduces obesity within a short period of time.
The author of the argument contends that an ancient method helps to cure obesity in people. The author supports his claim by basis of survey in which handful of people were chosen and after two weeks, people lost an average of about eight pounds each. However, the author’s reasoning seems flawed as the author has not provided sufficient evidence and is filled with numerous underlying assumptions which provoke a sense of doubt.
Firstly, the author has assumed only fifty people in the survey. The author implies that what holds true for fifty people will hold true for vast majority of the population of the world. The sample is too small to rely upon. Had the sample be in millions or so, one would might consider it more trustworthy.
Secondly, the author has assumed that the people are alike. That is they belong to the same race and ethnicity and carry out similar day to day jobs. What might hold true for a particular group of people might not hold true for other group. For instance, reduction in obesity by consumption of coconut oil might lead to positive results for Asians whereas for, let’s say, people of American origin it might hold some different result. Moreover, there is a great plausibility that the effect might vary for people even who belong to same ethnicity and race. No evidence or enclosures or patient details are given.
Thirdly, the reduction in weight of eight pounds on an average could be misleading. As we all know that average is representation of sample. In this scenario, sample is the set of fifty people chosen on whom coconut oil experiment is conducted. In the sample of population mentioned by the author, chances are that some of might have decreased their weight by eight pounds or so while some of them might even have gained weight by eight pounds or so while to some it might have been ineffective. Not just an absolute number, but could be any number, say, one, two, three, five or nine.
Fourthly, the argument is only recently proven. This means it might still be under consideration and is open to debate and criticism and the results proven by the test might be debunked in the distant future. Had it been proven eons ago, one might consider it valid and genuine.
Lastly, but not the least, the author has assumed that all of them liked the diet and the diet was similar for everyone. As human beings, we all know that every person’s body is different and responds differently to different measures. For instance, a corpulent man needs to work out in gym more to attain desired weight compared to the man who is relatively slim. Taking that into account, there is huge chance that the uniform diet might not have after all be proven effective in the same sense for all than desired.
By the virtue of above assumptions and their postulated consequences, it is clear that there needs to be more evidences and thorough details on the survey presented to consider it to be reliable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 514 350
No. of Characters: 2366 1500
No. of Different Words: 235 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.761 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.603 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.346 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.769 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.074 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.27 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.535 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 66, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[10]
Message: The pronoun is must be used with 'are'.
Suggestion: are
...assumed that the people are alike. That is they belong to the same race and ethnic...
^^
Line 7, column 85, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” 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.
...unds on an average could be misleading. As we all know that average is representat...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, third, thirdly, whereas, while, after all, as for, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2451.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 514.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 4.76848249027 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76146701107 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.48516392988 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463035019455 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 766.8 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.6577792541 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.2692307692 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.7692307692 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.53846153846 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.120581418356 0.218282227539 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0351007621582 0.0743258471296 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0377458665566 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0542654288845 0.128457276422 42% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0292200605819 0.0628817314937 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.9 14.3799401198 76% => 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: 10.39 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.9 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.