The following appeared in an article in a consumer-products magazine:
"Two of today's best-selling brands of full-strength prescription medication for the relief of excess stomach acid, Acid-Ease and Pepticaid, are now available in milder nonprescription forms. Doctors have written 76 million more prescriptions for full-strength Acid-Ease than for full-strength Pepticaid. So people who need an effective but milder nonprescription medication for the relief of excess stomach acid should choose Acid-Ease."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
This argument claims that patients should choose nonprescription Acid-Ease over nonprescription Pepticaid when they need effective milder nonprescription medication to relieve excess stomach acid. The only evidence cited to support this conclusion is that doctors have written 76 million more prescriptions for full strength Acid-Ease than for full-strength Pepticaid. I think that this argument is not convincing, however, because of following reasons:
First of all, the author readily assumes that the full-strength Acid-Ease must be more effective than full-strength Pepticaid because doctors have written more prescriptions for the former. The quantity of doctor's prescriptions might be relevant to the effectiveness of medication, yet the comparison between the prescription for Acid-Ease and that for Pepticaid should be more thorough. It could be possible that the Acid-Ease has been available on the market for many years while Pepicaid has just been introduced to the medical industry. It would be more reasonable if the author could show the quantity of prescription for both brand since they both became available to the patients.
Moreover, a lot of other factors might alter a doctor's decision on choosing a certain brand of medication, rather than the effectiveness. For example, the manufacturer of Acid-Ease may have run campaigns to promote their product more frequently than does the manufacturer of Pepticaid, so that the doctors will always think of Acid-Ease when they need to recommend such type of medication to the patients. Another reason could be that the price of full-strength Acid-Ease is much lower than the price of full-strength Pepticaid, so the doctors would recommend the more affordable one to the patients even if that one is less effective than the other.
Finally, the author suggests that patients should choose the milder nonprescription Acid-Ease over the nonprescription Pepticaid. However, the effectiveness of a certain medicine may change from full-strength form to milder nonprescription form. Even if it is true that the full-strength Acid-Ease is more effective than full-strength Pepticaid, it might not be the same case when they are both in milder nonprescription form. Also, the price and availability of a product should be also taken into consideration when a patient choose the medication. If both of the medication have similar effectiveness, the patients would be more likely to choose the one with more affordable price and the one easier to buy from the pharmacy.
In sum, it would be imprudent for the patients to choose the milder nonprescription Acid-Ease over Pepticaid with the evidences provided. To make the conclusion more compelling, the author would have to prove that the doctors have written more prescription for Acid-Ease solely because of its effectiveness and the milder nonprescription form would have the same effect as the full-strength one.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 449 350
No. of Characters: 2438 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.603 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.43 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.237 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 82 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.412 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.437 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.412 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.602 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.116 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, while, for example, i think, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2485.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 449.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.53452115813 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60321845022 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.2921075368 2.78398813304 118% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.383073496659 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 748.8 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 52.028800618 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 155.3125 119.503703932 130% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0625 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.6875 5.70786347227 117% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.307947590379 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.140129569311 0.0743258471296 189% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.069627510384 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.221560000072 0.128457276422 172% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492863677314 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.6 14.3799401198 129% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.6 48.3550499002 72% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.09 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.73 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.