The following appeared in a newsletter published by the Appleton school district.
"In a recent study more than 5,000 adolescents were asked how often they ate meals with their families. Almost 30 percent of the teens said they ate at least seven meals per week with their families. Furthermore, according to the same survey, teens who reported having the most family meals per week were also the ones least likely to have tried illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Family meals were also associated with lower rates of problems such as low grades in school, low self-esteem, and depression. We therefore recommend that families have as many meals together as possible. We predict that doing so will greatly benefit adolescents and turn troubled teens away from bad behaviors."
Write a response in which you discuss which questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the newsletter publication, the author recommends families of adolescents to eat their meals together, in order to turn troubled teens away from bad behaviors. The author reached this conclusion based on a study, where 30% of over 5000 adolescents claimed that they eat meals with their families, and these teens were observed to be less likely to try drugs and alcohol.The author also extrapolates from the conclusions of this study, that these teens are also less likely to have low grades in school, low self esteem and depression. While the author suggestion appears sound, it relies on several unwarranted assumptions. In order to reach a conclusion, three questions must be answered.
Firstly, can results from a study, in Appleton School district, be applied to other districts/ states? Or in other words, are all regions homogenous, so as the observations from one district can be assumed to also lead to same conclusions in other places? It is possible that Appleton District is a very religious district and hence, most teenages, irrespective of wether they eat meals with their families, are less likely to try drugs and alcohol. Also, it is possible that, this same district has relatively easier school curriculum and hence less students suffer from anxiety, and get better scores. If any of the above is true, then the author’s recommendation that eating meals with family will lead to less depression and better school grades, does not stand water.
Secondly, how do we know that the teenagers did not lie on the survey? It is possible that the kids were scared of their teachers and parents, and hence lied about not having tried drugs or alcohol. Unless an actual medical examination suggets lack of drugs and alcohol in one’s system, it is not prudent to believe everything that one says. Also, the survey results focus more on the students who eat a meal with their parents, than the ones who do not. What percentage of adolescents who do not eat with their families, have good grades in school and do not engage in drugs/ alcohol consumption? We need answers to that as well. Unless, a full 360 degree view of this survey is provided, it would not be smart to derive a conclusion.
Lastly, is it possible that the advantages that the author has listed are actually a result of some other factors, and do not have much to do with merely eating meals with the family? Consider the example, of a teenager, who lives with his single parent, and his parent works two jobs to put food on a table, for this child, eating a meal with his parent is not possible, but the reasons he is not able to score well in exams, is not because he is not eating a meal with his parent, but because of other personal/financial issues. Or, consider the case of another student, he works part-time jobs to assist his family financially and thus cannot make time to eat meals with his family, his anxiety and low grades are due to financial reasons and has nothing to do with his family’s eating habits. Hence, in order to substantiate his claim, the author must find out more background information of the teenagers questioned, and understand wether an alternate underlying relationship exists that relates to dwindling grades and poor performance at school.
In conclusion, the author’s claim relies on several unjustified assumptions and in order to reach to a solution, the above questions must be answered.
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: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 584 350
No. of Characters: 2751 1500
No. of Different Words: 256 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.916 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.711 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.525 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.81 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.29 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.522 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.133 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 374, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
...be less likely to try drugs and alcohol.The author also extrapolates from the concl...
^^^
Line 3, column 14, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[2]
Message: The verb 'can' requires the base form of the verb: 'result'
Suggestion: result
...tions must be answered. Firstly, can results from a study, in Appleton School distri...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 547, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun students is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...vely easier school curriculum and hence less students suffer from anxiety, and get b...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, while, in conclusion, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2848.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 582.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89347079038 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91168771031 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71357361661 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 272.0 204.123752495 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.46735395189 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 860.4 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 85.0431663101 57.8364921388 147% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.619047619 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.7142857143 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.28571428571 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.203973895664 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0630204332353 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0492087697959 0.0701772020484 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.104341589338 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0572140107154 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.38 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 129.0 98.500998004 131% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.