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.
The argument presented by the author is in favor of the canned foods produced by Promofoods and vouches for their edibility with no risks. They support their conclusion with results of some experiments conducted on eight million returned cans by chemists and further adds that no harmful chemicals were detected in these testings. Though at first glance, the author's claims might look logical and practical, but on closer inspection it is quite evident that their argument is based on major assumptions without which the conclusions derived by the author might collapse.
First of all, the author mentions that numerous complaints are being registered by the consumers after the consumption of tuna produced by Promofoods. The argument never talks about the time line within which the complaints were received. To illustrate, assume a woman purchases a can of tuna from the above specified company. She experiences a bout of dizziness and nausea after a week of consumption and has written a formal complaint to the company. The lady has assumed that as there were no changes in her day to day diet, the tuna could be the potential reason for this sudden ail. In this case, the reason for this sudden illness could be any other factor. A dizziness caused by a substance consumed a week ago might not be possible. Therefore, the author should provide a detailed information or a suitable answer regarding the complaints and the timeline between the consumption and nausea experienced by their consumers to support their claims.
Additionally, the author mentions that 8 million cans were returned back to the respective company but have not mentioned the place or time they were taken from. Assume that most of the registered complaints were from India a year ago and the company has requested 8 million cans to be returned from the United States currently. Then, the validity of the research conducted on these cans is not worthy as it is evidently clear that the problem lies in the cans provided to the regions in India a year ago and not in the United States, especially at present time. Thus, the author should provide thorough details regarding the origin of return of these cans to provide better credibility towards the research done on them
Furthermore, the scientists concluded that the canned foods produce three harmful chemicals and claimed they would be available in every canned foods. They have failed to incorporate any evidence to these claims. Many governments ban any substance that utilizes detrimental chemicals. Given these restrictions it is impossible to imagine that every canned food in existence produces harmful chemicals that could potentially result in dizziness and nausea. Without clear evidence that states that these three chemicals being produced in the canned tuna is universal in canned food and might not be the cause of declining health in customers, it cannot be ruled out as a possible culprit. The author should provide a clear statement vouching the claims of the chemists to quench these raising doubts.
Canned food is the new trend in the arriving generation and is produced in large amounts. With people becoming more and more addicted to these kind of food, it is the responsibility of the companies to produce healthy and non toxic food for the welfare of the customers. This implies that the author should be more detailed and gather evidence that could warrant the assumptions their arguments are built on. Unless more data is presented or the present argument is modified, it is impossible to accept their conclusion unquestionably.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 589 350
No. of Characters: 2955 1500
No. of Different Words: 260 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.926 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.017 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.66 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 225 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.542 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.19 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.292 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.275 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.275 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 60, Rule ID: RETURN_BACK[1]
Message: Use simply 'returned'.
Suggestion: returned
...uthor mentions that 8 million cans were returned back to the respective company but have not ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 137, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this kind' or 'these kinds'?
Suggestion: this kind; these kinds
...ople becoming more and more addicted to these kind of food, it is the responsibility of th...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, look, regarding, so, then, therefore, thus, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3003.0 2260.96107784 133% => OK
No of words: 589.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09847198642 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92639038232 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71513655797 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443123938879 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 929.7 705.55239521 132% => 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: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.5702799303 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.125 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5416666667 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.91666666667 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.230330214829 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0662151251515 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0500519519697 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120281606533 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0531441272904 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.45 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.