The following appeared in a memo from the director of a large group of hospitals.
"In a laboratory study of liquid antibacterial hand soaps, a concentrated solution of UltraClean produced a 40 percent greater reduction in the bacteria population than did the liquid hand soaps currently used in our hospitals. During a subsequent test of UltraClean at our hospital in Workby, that hospital reported significantly fewer cases of patient infection 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 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 suggests that all hospitals in the system should supply UltraClean in order to prevent patient infections. However, this claim relies on several assumptions that need supports.
First, the author states that the concentrated solution of UltraClean outperforms hand soaps in laboratory experiments. Since hospitals need to take cost in to account, they would probably consider using diluted solution instead of concentrated one. The assumption here is that the diluted solution of UltraClean also has this promising performance in reducing bacteria. However, it is quite conceivable that the performance of most diluted solution could be worse. For example, 30% alcohol would not have the same effect on killing bacteria as the 75% one.
The memo also mentions that the subsequent test shows that UltraClean really helps reduce the cases of patient infection. Here, the author assumes that the environments of the hospital at Workby is analogous to the others. Therefore, the result is reasonable and worth trusting. Yet, for example, if Workby is a modern and clean city where the issue of patient infection is already negligible while the other hospitals in the system are located in some old towns where many streets are dirty and suitable for bacteria to proliferate, the conclusion the author draw could be misleading.
The author also claims that by applying UltraClean throughout the hospital system, the serious patient infections can be prevented. The assumption is that the main source of patient infections is bacteria. As a result, UltraClean can help control the number of patient infections due to its effective reduction of bacteria. Nevertheless, it might be possible that there are many other causes for patient infections that are more important than bacteria. For example, virus could be one of the powerful sources to infect patients. If hand soaps outperform UltraClean in controlling the growth of virus, applying UltraClean to all hand-washing station might not indeed reduce the number of patient infections.
To substantiate his claim, the author needs to address the above assumptions.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 331 350
No. of Characters: 1753 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.265 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.296 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.142 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, nevertheless, really, so, therefore, while, for example, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1805.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 331.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45317220544 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26537283232 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88016042366 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 173.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.522658610272 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 543.6 705.55239521 77% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 54.1495414524 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.277777778 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3888888889 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.22222222222 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.172836395578 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0582987076858 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0537125319459 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0848832562374 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.05847095365 0.0628817314937 93% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.