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 the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
Please help me improve this essay and if possible give me an idea of what score you would give it and why. Any and all help is very much appreciated so thank you in advance!
It's not uncommon for business magazines to write in such a manner that certain company comes off looking better than is truly merited. Moreover, it is not common practice for business magazines to publish in-depth details or analyses of chemical tests. Therefore, this excerpt presented has been found lacking in sufficient evidence to conclude that Promofoods is completely innocent of having produced tuna that leads to nausea of dizziness when consumed. Several questions need to be answered in order to evaluate the conclusion that Promofoods tuna is not to be blamed for feelings of nausea and dizziness.
Initially, the veracity and reliability of the complaints needs to be assessed. When Promofoods says it received numerous complains, how many complaints justify the label numerous? Is 100 complaints considered sufficient if 1,000,000 cans were distributed? Secondly, the question of who issued these complaints needs to be answered. If the majority of complaints come from a select few households or the number of complains was deemed numerous while the ratio of complaints to cans sold is very small then it is improbable that chemists will find significant results of contaminated tuna. These two possible scenarios would corroborate that the conclusion, the cans were not found responsible for the nausea and dizziness, is true because they indicate that only a small percentage of clients felt any negative symptoms resulting from the tuna.
Should the complaints be found truthful and of significant quantity, it is next necessary to question the chemists and their work. The magazine states that the chemists responsible for testing were members of the Promofoods company. It is difficult to be certain that the work was executed neutrally when the chemists are employees of a company in potential danger of scrutiny should they find unfavorable results. For this very reason, their results should be confirmed by an independent. Additionally, more information is required surrounding the complaints. Did all the affected customers consume tuna manufactured and packaged in the same batch? If so, it is possible that the machinery was due for cleaning and some residue or dirt ended up in their food. It is probable that the ingredients were mixed in the wrong proportions in this one particular batch. If the chemists work is confirmed by a third party and no batch-based irregularity found, then this further supports their conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the tuna.
Lastly if there are no other impediments to assuming that the complaints are valid and the chemical testing is accurate, in examining the results there needs to be clarity surrounding the terms "small amounts" and "occur naturally in canned foods". Are small amounts discerned by percentage or absolute quantity? In a small package 1mg of something can be very significant whereas in a large package that could be virtually nothing. Furthermore, does canned foods signify all canned foods or certain canned foods? It would be normal to find a chemical from the cans in the food, but rather abnormal to find a chemical that exists exclusively in canned beef. These terms need to be clarified in order to verify the conclusion.
While it is quite possible that the business magazine's conclusion is true, the tuna cans were not found to be culpable for the symptoms experienced by their consumers, certain questions need to be answered before this statement can be posited. The reliability and accuracy of the survey needs to assessed, the chemical testing needs to be validated, and the chemical makeup of the tuna cans needs to be compared to results of tuna cans known to be non-symptom inducing to truly evaluate whether the conclusion is true or false.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 606 350
No. of Characters: 3096 1500
No. of Different Words: 266 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.962 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.109 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.805 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 227 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 196 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 156 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 88 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.522 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.267 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.461 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 46, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'magazines'' or 'magazine's'?
Suggestion: magazines'; magazine's
... it is quite possible that the business magazines conclusion is true, the tuna cans were ...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, if, lastly, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, whereas, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 50.0 19.6327345309 255% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3180.0 2260.96107784 141% => OK
No of words: 606.0 441.139720559 137% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.24752475248 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.96155895361 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91812635901 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 277.0 204.123752495 136% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.457095709571 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 980.1 705.55239521 139% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.4890627376 57.8364921388 118% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.777777778 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4444444444 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.92592592593 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
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: 0.335102722954 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.087262215808 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0577446165756 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.20044250536 0.128457276422 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.066612440536 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.47 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 157.0 98.500998004 159% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.