The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. Furthermore, there has been a fourfold increase in sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol. This trend is also evident in reduced sales of sulia, a food that few of the healthiest citizens regularly eat.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author of the argument concludes that the citizens of Forsythe have become more health conscious based on a survey whose results showed that the citizens are conforming more closely to the government nutritional recommendations. In addition, there was an increase in sales of food products containing kiran while there was a decrease in the sales of sulia. However, though the argument looks cogent at first glance, upon further contemplation, the author seems to base his argument on exceptionable assumptions.
Firstly, the author concludes that the denizens of Forsythe have adopted healthful lifestyles based on the findings from a survey. In doing so, the author fallaciously assumes that the survery was sound enough without any errors. However, this assumption may not be true. It is possible that the sample chosen for the survey was a biased sample and the results of such survey are not characteristics of the population of Forsythe. Furthermore, there is a possibility that the sample size of the survey was not big enough to represent the whole population of the Forsythe. If the above mentioned fallacies are present in the survey, then the author's conclusion is unwarranted.
Secondly, the author claims that the people's reponses in the survey indicate they conform more closely to the government nutritional recommendations. The author speciously assumely that the people who participated in the survey were being honest about their food habits. Perhaps, in order to appear more health conscious to the surveyor, people who participated in the survey responded in such a way that makes them appear more health conscious while in reality, they were in stark contrast. If the above case turns out to be true, then the author's argument does not hold water.
Finally, the author asserts that the sales of food products containing kiran has increasad fourfold. What the author fails to consider is the increase of sales with respect to the population increase rather than considering the food products alone. The author attributes the increase in sales of such food products to the increase in health consciousness among the people. However, there is a possibility the increase in sales is due to the increase in the population in Forsythe while the percentage of people buying such products remain constant. If such scenario has any merit, then the author's line of reasoning is significantly weakened.
Therefore, the argument, as it stands, is unpersuasive as it relies on a series of unwarranted assumptions, which, if does not hold true, would significantly weaken the author's conclusion. The argument would be more convincing if the author takes into account the above assumptions and then present his argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 437 350
No. of Characters: 2252 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.572 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.153 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.856 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.995 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.576 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.162 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 642, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ies are present in the survey, then the authors conclusion is unwarranted. Secondly,...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 542, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ove case turns out to be true, then the authors argument does not hold water. Finall...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 170, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ld true, would significantly weaken the authors conclusion. The argument would be more ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, while, in addition, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 11.1786427146 18% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2306.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 437.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27688787185 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57214883401 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94331308485 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.439359267735 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 711.9 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.450281214 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.3 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.85 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.05 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.18131358246 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0593348774491 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0925382737812 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105562878632 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0780030260128 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.34 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.