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.
In the magazine article it is stated that Promofoods denies that their canned tuna can cause dizziness and nausea, neither that consuming it would pose any health threats. The company argued that they asked their chemists to conduct a series of tests on certain samples. According to their results,five of the common chemicals responsible for these reactions were not found in the samples, and the remaining chemicals could not be the cause since all canned food naturally posses them. However, each of these arguments results unconvincing. In the next paragraphs, it will be exposed that they lack imprescindible data that would provide validity to them.
Firstly, the fact that they analyzed only the eight most common chemicals. Does that guarantee that their product does not possess any substance that could account for the effects?. Even if the results were irrefutable (which they are not), it could happen to be the case that an uncommon chemical is causing adverse effects on certain patients. Similalry, they failed to evaluate which are the characteristics of the consumers with issues. Maybe it is uncommon that one of these substances is innocuos for the younger healthier, but not for older consumers who may suffer from other conditions that trigger these symptoms.
Secondly, it is stated that eight million cans were returned for testing, yet, what is the number of cans that were actually tested?. It is possible that they decided to test on fifty cans of the eight million pool, or test cans from only one lot with similar characteristics. Additionally, there exists a potential bias when the people conducting the research are the employees of the company and it is in their best interest that the results refute a negative conclusion. Where the researchers in the optimal condition to show impartiality? If those circumstances turned to be true, then their study would have failed to perform an extensive research that could advocate for meaningful results.
Those are some of the reasons why the statement as it stands now is flawed. Clearly, in order to reach a sound conclusion, it is required that further information is provided to support their assumptions and to assess the validity of their arguments. If Promofoods could supply data that would deny that could answer the above presented inqueries, then their declaration could be more convincing.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 387 350
No. of Characters: 1948 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.435 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.034 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.635 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.812 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.389 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.48 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 298, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , five
...tain samples. According to their results,five of the common chemicals responsible for...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 623, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...conditions that trigger these symptoms. Secondly, it is stated that eight millio...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 632, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'extensive research'.
Suggestion: extensive research
...heir study would have failed to perform an extensive research that could advocate for meaningful resu...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 11, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...e for meaningful results. Those are some of the reasons why the statement as it stands ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 26.0 13.6137724551 191% => OK
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => 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: 2002.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 386.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18652849741 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43248042346 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76819260149 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.538860103627 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 599.4 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.262002113 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.222222222 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4444444444 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.16666666667 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.212309739653 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0599094330755 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0631882184414 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121882823492 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0643808108846 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.26 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.