The following appeared in a business magazine.
‘As a result of numerous complaints of dizziness and nausea on the part of consumers of Promofoods tuna, the company requested that eight million cans of its tuna be returned for testing. Promofoods concluded that the canned tuna did not, after all, pose a health risk. This conclusion is based on tests performed on samples of the recalled cans by chemists from Promofoods; the chemists found that of the eight food chemicals most commonly blamed for causing symptoms of dizziness and nausea, five were not found in any of the tested cans. The chemists did find small amounts of the three remaining suspected chemicals but pointed out that these occur naturally in all canned foods.’
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
The above article claims that the Promofoods tuna does not lead to dizzy or nausea based on their testing results from recalled samples. That claim is based on the evidence that, among the eight chemicals commonly being related to health risks, chemists from Promofoods stated five of them were not found from sample cans, and the rest three, existing ubiquitously in canned foods, only presented in small amounts. However, this essay is going to argue that three more questions need to be answered before they can draw their desired conclusion that Promofoods tuna is irrelevant to dizziness and nausea.
First of all, the question of whether the recalled samples are representative needs to be addressed. If, for example, only the tuna cans from the UK has been recalled, whereas it is the products in the Chinese market which causes the problem, then the testing result would incorrectly exonerate Promofoods. On the other hand, if the sample being recalled is a random sample containing products from various regions of the globe, then the testing result can be more plausible.
The second question worth asking is that, apart from the eight most common chemicals, whether there is any other chemicals leading to dizziness and nausea. In fact, since it is impossible to exclude the existence of unknown chemicals rising health concerns, the testing methodology seems problematic. It is preferable if the chemists can examine the composition of Promofoods tuna and assess the potential health risks of every containing chemicals. In that way, they are more likely to spot the unique or uncommon chemicals causing health issues, of
any. However, if after a thorough assessment, the conclusion remains, the claim that Promofoods is the wrong product to complain seems reasonable.
Last but not least, a significant question remains to be the position and attitude of the chemists. Although the conduction of scientific research asserts to be neutral, it is inevitable to be affected by personal biases in reality, unfortunately. This also explains the typical deed of recruiting an external scientist to accomplish the quality test. However, since the test is conducted by chemists working at Promofoods, the neutrality of those chemists remains to be questionable. This is not accusing them for deliberately drawing false conclusions, but the confidence to Promofoods might lead to overoptimistic assumptions at some stage of the experiment, for instance. Therefore, if the inherent human bias significantly affect the test result, Promofoods tuna might be the genuine factor leading to dizziness and nausea.
In conclusion, this essay has argued that three questions need to be asked before concluding that Promofoods tuna is not related to people’s dizziness and nausea. Explicitly, the representativeness of the recalled sample, the non-existence of unknown harmful chemicals, and the neutrality of chemists. Only if positive answers can be given to all of these questions can the innocence of Promofoods tuna be more plausible.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 478 350
No. of Characters: 2497 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.676 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.224 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.853 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 110 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.762 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.257 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 15, Rule ID: WHETHER[3]
Message: Wordiness: Shorten this phrase to the shortest possible suggestion.
Suggestion: whether; the question whether
...o dizziness and nausea. First of all, the question of whether the recalled samples are representative...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Any
...n chemicals causing health issues, of any. However, if after a thorough assessmen...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, second, so, then, therefore, whereas, apart from, for example, for instance, in conclusion, in fact, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2572.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 478.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.38075313808 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67581127817 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96445286312 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 239.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 781.2 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.1196729073 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.6 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.9 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.15 5.70786347227 143% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.273073177813 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0890150183512 0.0743258471296 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0774977972248 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.14876803265 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0708780614186 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.22 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.27 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 136.0 98.500998004 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.