The following appeared in the health section of a magazine on trends and lifestyles:
“People who use the artificial sweetener aspartame are better off consuming sugar, since aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain rather than weight loss. For example, high levels of aspartame have been shown to trigger a craving for food by depleting the brain of a chemical that registers satiety, or the sense of being full. Furthermore, studies suggest that sugars, if consumed after at least 45 minutes of continuous exercise, actually enhance the body’s ability to burn fat. Consequently, those who drink aspartame-sweetened juices after exercise will also lose this calorie-burning benefit. Thus it appears that people consuming aspartame rather than sugar are unlikely to achieve their dietary goals.”
The recommendation endorsed in this argument is that people fail to get dietary benefit from eating aspartame. The reasons cited are that aspartame with high level would induce people to eat more and that people lose the merit of discomposing fat after a 45-minutes continuous exercise. These reasons sounds convincing at the first glance. Close scrutiny, however, reveals several logic flaws of this argument.
To begin with, the argument depends on the conclusion that high level of aspartame result in less sense of being full, thus triggering people to eat more. Whereas it ignores to provide further details of this conclusion, such as whether this level of aspartame be possible for normal intake or it only works in certain group of people. It is entirely possible, if any of those details happens, that the conclusion is insufficient to provide any support for the argument.
In addition, the author’s second explanation of the con of aspartame dose not suffice to prove that people would be better off taking in sugar rather than using aspartame as substitution. On the one hand, sugar have the function of burning fat after people exercise consistently after 45 minutes dose not equal to with aspartame the function disappears. On the other hand, the article take for granted that with a few defects that aspartame loses the upper hand over sugar, overseeing the numerous benefits brought by aspartame. For instance, aspartame is with 0 calorie and much sweeter as well as cheaper than sugar, lowering the cost of sweets produced by it. People wanting to have a diet could benefit from its low calorie and cost, while enjoying the same flavor and satisfaction as taking normal sweets.
In sum, this argument is weak and vague. To strengthen the argument, the author must provide additional information about the adequacy of the first conclusion and a comprehensive comparison of their pros and cons between aspartame and sugar. Only with more accurate evidence could this argument be more thorough and convincing.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 331 350
No. of Characters: 1659 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.265 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.012 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.61 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.067 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.282 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.561 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The recommendation endorsed in this argu...
^^
Line 1, column 343, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: Scrutiny
... sounds convincing at the first glance. Close scrutiny, however, reveals several logic flaws o...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... several logic flaws of this argument. To begin with, the argument depends on t...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... provide any support for the argument. In addition, the author’s second explana...
^^
Line 3, column 565, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'calorie' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'calories'.
Suggestion: calories
...tame. For instance, aspartame is with 0 calorie and much sweeter as well as cheaper tha...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 590, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...tame is with 0 calorie and much sweeter as well as cheaper than sugar, lowering th...
^^
Line 3, column 813, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d satisfaction as taking normal sweets. In sum, this argument is weak and vague....
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, second, so, then, thus, well, whereas, while, for instance, in addition, such as, as well as, to begin with, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1698.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 331.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12990936556 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26537283232 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6909628598 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.558912386707 0.468620217663 119% => OK
syllable_count: 534.6 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.6264266518 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.2 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0666666667 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.73333333333 5.70786347227 171% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.168632218435 0.218282227539 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0574694834878 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0627079953102 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0942933055724 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0628772908802 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.73 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => 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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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.