The following appeared in a health newsletter.
"Nosinia is an herb that many users report to be as effective as prescription medications at fighting allergy symptoms. Researchers recently compared Nosinia to a placebo in 95 men and women with seasonal allergies to ragweed pollen. Participants in the study reported that neither Nosinia nor the placebo offered significant relief. However, for the most severe allergy symptoms, the researchers reported that Nosinia was more effective than the placebo in providing relief. Furthermore, at the end of the study, participants given Nosinia were more likely than participants given a placebo to report feeling healthier.We therefore recommend using Nosinia to help with your severe allergy symptoms.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation 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 recommendation.
The argument that consuming Nosinia aids with serious allergy symptoms does not seem to be complete. There are gaps in the logic that render it unconvincing. The following essay will expose these flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be made more cogent.
First, the argument unfairly presupposes that the so-called "many users" reporting Nosinia to be as efficacious as prescription medicines at curbing allergy symptoms are representative of the majority of people. Perhaps these users account for a small fraction of people suffering from allergy in the society, or maybe they are people who have never experienced allergy symptoms in their lifetime, but have heard of the effectiveness of Nosinia from other people who have in fact witnessed the symptoms. In other words. these users' knowledge on the efficacy of Nosinia might be second-hand, hence adversely affect its credibility to back up the recommendation. If the author had shown that the above-mentioned users are actually representative of the majority of the patients in the community, whom themselves have tested and seen the positive impacts of Nosinia, the argument could have been strengthened.
Second, the fact that Nosinia was more effective than the placebo in providing relief in the aforesaid study is little indication that it also helps you with grave allergy symptoms. According to the study, neither of the two substances offered considerable relief, so how then Nosinia can be regarded as being useful in severe cases of allergy? Moreover, the argument has not presented information about the select group of the mentioned investigation, and that how its participants are representative of most , if not all, people suffering from allergy in the locality. The writer could reinforce their case by filling the blatant gap between the stated fact in the study (that none of the medications offered significant relief) and the recommendation, and by supplying details about the statistic characteristics of the referred study in terms of its capability to trace the general trend.
Finally, the relation between taking Nosinia and feeling healthier as the argument states, accomplishes nothing towards bolstering the recommendation that using Nosinia helps with severe allergy symptoms. Is suffering from severe allergy symptoms the only metric for assessing people's wellness? The argument illogically assumes that you are either healthy or suffering from severe allergy symptoms. Yet it is entirely possible that those who felt healthier at the end of the study reported their overall wellness but not specifically their allergy symptoms. The line of reasoning would become stronger if the author vividly stated that the pre-set definition of being healthy
in the study is the degree to which its respondents are suffering from severe allergy symptoms.
To summarise, the argument is not wholly sensible. The evidence in support of the recommendation that those with severe allergy symptoms should use Nosinia does little to prove that suggestion, since it does not address the suppositions already brought up.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 481 350
No. of Characters: 2569 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.683 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.341 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.887 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 161 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.316 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.958 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.526 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.395 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.605 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.159 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 531, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: These
...witnessed the symptoms. In other words. these users knowledge on the efficacy of Nosi...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 537, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'users'' or 'user's'?
Suggestion: users'; user's
...sed the symptoms. In other words. these users knowledge on the efficacy of Nosinia mi...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 511, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
... participants are representative of most , if not all, people suffering from aller...
^^
Line 7, column 676, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the pre-set definition of being healthy in the study is the degree to which its ...
^^^
Line 16, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ositions already brought up. .
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 22, column 1, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...ady brought up. .
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, hence, if, may, moreover, second, so, then, well, in fact, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2662.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 481.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.5343035343 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68313059816 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98640160276 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.49896049896 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 834.3 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 80.9272440935 57.8364921388 140% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.105263158 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.3157894737 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.78947368421 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => 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: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.236040974684 0.218282227539 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.074663873402 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0617284381272 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119186282799 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0510359332674 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.3 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.09 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 98.500998004 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.