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 of a large group of hospitals concludes that their hospital chain should switch from using liquid hand soaps to concentrated solution of UltraClean to help fight against bacteria. The author comes to this contention based on the foundings from the studies published by a laboratory. Before, we assess the validity of the argument, the author needs to provide additional evidence against the three unwarranted assumptions stated below.
Firstly, the author assumes that the study conducted by the laboratory holds merit. However, there can be multiple reasons which severily damages the conclusion of this study. Like it is possible that the company or industry that manufactures the UltraClean solution have in some way rigded the studies by providing a substantial amount to the laboratory to publish false results or perhaps this laboratory is fraudalent by itself. It is also possible that the studies were conducted in specific environment such that the result is not applicable in rest of the places. If either of the above scenarios holds, the author's contention fails to hold water.
Secondly, the author assumes that all the rest of the hospital will see similar results as one observed in the hospital in Workby. It is likely that the result of test performed in hospital in Workby where fewer cases of patient infection were reported was an anomality and it does not represent the ideal condition for all the hospitals. Perhaps, extra attention was paid on cleanliness when these tests were conducted and the reduction in cases of bacteria infection was just resulted from these extra precautions. Whereas, it is also possible that there were relatively fewer patients present in the hospital at the time when the tests were been perform. This factor might have hamper the spread of bacteria as the human intervention is limited. In either scenarios, the author's assumption is significantly weakened,
Lastly, the author assumes that the UltraClean solution is a much better fit than liquid hand soaps when fighting against severe bacteria. However, it is probable that UltraClean solution works best on bacteria which does not produce much harm on patient and is rendered useless where harmful bacteria comes into picture. It is also possible that liquid hand soaps works on more variety of bacteria than UltraClean solution and thus is likely to be much more effective in places like hospital, where there are possibily different strains of bacteria. Either of the above two cases is likely to hinder credibility of the author's assumption.
In conclusion, the director might be right that the group of hospitals should switch to UltraClean solution for better results against bacteria. However, as it stands now the conclusion is based on three assumptions that hinders its validity. Thus, author needs to provide evidence for the above mentioned assumption to increase the persuasiveness of the conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2427 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.175 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 188 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.482 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 615, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ither of the above scenarios holds, the authors contention fails to hold water. Sec...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 518, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Whereas” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... resulted from these extra precautions. Whereas, it is also possible that there were re...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 650, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'performed'.
Suggestion: performed
...al at the time when the tests were been perform. This factor might have hamper the spre...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 682, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'hampered'.
Suggestion: hampered
...re been perform. This factor might have hamper the spread of bacteria as the human int...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 775, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...on is limited. In either scenarios, the authors assumption is significantly weakened, ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 621, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... is likely to hinder credibility of the authors assumption. In conclusion, the direc...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, thus, whereas, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2476.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 469.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27931769723 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65364457471 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74067587954 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45842217484 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 774.9 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.8569185355 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.8 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.45 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.65 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.252084094258 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0722382251708 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0874861384118 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144494706667 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0722907007771 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.64 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.