The following appeared in a memo from the director of a large group of hospitals. "In a controlled laboratory study of liquid hand soaps, a concentrated solution of extra strength UltraClean hand soap produced a 40 percent greater reduction in harmful bacteria than did the liquid hand soaps currently used in our hospitals. During our recent test of regular-strength UltraClean with doctors, nurses, and visitors at our hospital in Worktown, the hospital reported significantly fewer cases of patient infection (a 20 percent reduction) than did any of the other hospitals in our group. Therefore, to prevent serious patient infections, we should supply UltraClean at all hand-washing stations, including those used by visitors, throughout our hospital system.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The director of a large group of hospitals contends that implementation of UltraClean soap is required in all of the hospitals to prevent serious patient infections. The argument seems axiomatic, but it includes several flaws in its assumptions.
First, the director cites data from a study conducted in a controlled laboratory. The director conjectures that data from a controlled setting will be well applied in real world. However, there is no information in which explains the resemblance of the controlled environment with the reality. If settings are found to be significantly different, the outcome from the controlled laboratory, a 40 percent greater reduction in harmful bacteria with extra strength UltraClean hand soap, could not exactly tell the same result will occur outside of the controlled setting. Thus, the author needs to provide more information on the resemblance of the controlled setting with real world in order to strengthen the claim.
Second, the author assumes that the recent test of regular-strength UltraClean in a hospital in Worktown is representative of the entire hospital system. From this recent test, regular-strength UltraClean hand soap does seem effective in reducing infections. Nevertheless, it is far-fetched to conclude that a single hospital will accurately represent the entire hospitals. There are a lot of confounding variables that could have contributed to this particular outcome; test results of regular-strength UltraClean products could be very different from results from a hospital in Worktown. Without showing proof of alienation of confounding variables and information that a hospital in Worktown can fully represent the whole, the author's argument remains unconvincing.
Third, even if the director proves the representativeness of the hospital in Worktown, the longevity of the report is needed. The test results of the hand soap could be aberrations, which means, there could be other results in other period of time. The director needs to provide longitudinal data of accurately test the efficacy of the regular-strength UltraClean hand soap.
Last, even if the recent test is an outcome of a test that has been conducted for an extended period of time, the author still supposes that character of people in a hospital in Worktown will be same as features of people in the other hospitals. People in the hospital in Worktown could be more prone to not reporting patient infections because they have less rigid criteria. Also, it could be that people in the other hospitals are more fickle and more responsive to infections. It could also be that the hospitals encouraged more for their people to report even minor patient infection which could have contributed to such result. Without providing information of the conditions of each hospitals, the author cannot assume that conditions and characteristics of people in the hospital in Worktown and the other hospitals will be the same.
All in all, the director's argument is not cogent. To strengthen the claim, the director needs to provide information ont he resemblance of the controlled setting with real world, the degree of representativeness of the hospital in Worktown, longitudinal data of the recent study, and intensive investigation of conditions of people in the hospital in Worktown and the other hospitals.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 522 350
No. of Characters: 2764 1500
No. of Different Words: 194 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.78 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.295 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.165 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 201 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 134 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.727 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.742 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.353 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.6 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 107, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...ation of UltraClean soap is required in all of the hospitals to prevent serious patient in...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 731, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...town can fully represent the whole, the authors argument remains unconvincing. Thir...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 234, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
..., there could be other results in other period of time. The director needs to provide longitud...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 95, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...that has been conducted for an extended period of time, the author still supposes that charact...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 17, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...s will be the same. All in all, the directors argument is not cogent. To strengthen t...
^^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'nevertheless', 'second', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'third', 'thus', 'well']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.268421052632 0.25644967241 105% => OK
Verbs: 0.129824561404 0.15541462614 84% => OK
Adjectives: 0.1 0.0836205057962 120% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0385964912281 0.0520304965353 74% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0140350877193 0.0272364105082 52% => OK
Prepositions: 0.157894736842 0.125424944231 126% => OK
Participles: 0.0333333333333 0.0416121511921 80% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.21965230249 2.79052419416 115% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0228070175439 0.026700313972 85% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.128070175439 0.113004496875 113% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0280701754386 0.0255425247493 110% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00877192982456 0.0127820249294 69% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3350.0 2731.13054187 123% => OK
No of words: 522.0 446.07635468 117% => OK
Chars per words: 6.41762452107 6.12365571057 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77988695657 4.57801047555 104% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.402298850575 0.378187486979 106% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.331417624521 0.287650121315 115% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.26245210728 0.208842608468 126% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.17816091954 0.135150697306 132% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.21965230249 2.79052419416 115% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 207.018472906 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.394636015326 0.469332199767 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 45.1718732376 52.1807786196 87% => OK
How many sentences: 22.0 20.039408867 110% => OK
Sentence length: 23.7272727273 23.2022227129 102% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.2354933815 57.7814097925 116% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.272727273 141.986410481 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7272727273 23.2022227129 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.590909090909 0.724660767414 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 3.58251231527 140% => OK
Readability: 56.8690351794 51.9672348444 109% => OK
Elegance: 2.51923076923 1.8405768891 137% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.513464851134 0.441005458295 116% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.157287736737 0.135418324435 116% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0997397914637 0.0829849096947 120% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.632800621554 0.58762219726 108% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.150546910992 0.147661913831 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.236598544685 0.193483328276 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.117345618379 0.0970749176394 121% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.469594431123 0.42659136922 110% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0907008962178 0.0774707102158 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.389303263998 0.312017818177 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0498366928231 0.0698173142475 71% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.33743842365 108% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.82512315271 145% => OK
Positive topic words: 5.0 6.46551724138 77% => OK
Negative topic words: 6.0 5.36822660099 112% => OK
Neutral topic words: 6.0 2.82389162562 212% => OK
Total topic words: 17.0 14.657635468 116% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.