The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal."A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situ

In the showed letter, the author makes the claim that birth order has an apparent effecting on an individual's level of stimulation, according to study done on rhesus monkeys. Asserting that this study showed first born monkeys in stimulating situations had higher levels of cortisol than their younger counterparts. While it is tempting to believe these arguments based on the information presented by the author, it would be fallacious to do so. And the argument is not entirely logically convincing, since it ignores certain crucial assumptions.
First, the author mentions that the study was conducted with eighteen rhesus monkeys, but what the author fails to mention are the validity and generalizability of these study results. The argument assumes that the sample could be representative, while the study was only conducted on rhesus monkeys, which is just one kind of monkeys, and the research of eighteen monkeys was not a large enough sample size to produce an efficacy statistic and valid results. Therefore, the study is only assumed to be, and not factually, valid and generalizable.
Furthermore, the author notes that the first born monkeys produced twice as much cortisol in stimulative situations as did their younger siblings, but he does not state how many stimulating situations were observed or how cortisol levels were measured. Without additional information, it cannot be assumed that enough stimulating situations were observed to garner accurate and generalizable results. These fallacies leave open the interpretation of validity of the results that author's assertion is based upon.
Third, the argument is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion is not sufficient to support the conclusion of the argument because it does not address the correlation between the first born human and the first born monkey, which these individuals are independent, when the author gives the example to prove his argument. In addition, the author did not mention whether the released cortisol in stimulating situations of firstborn human is higher than his younger siblings, we do not have any information about that. And moreover, the writer does not allude to how the researchers measured, recorded, or tracked the birth order of the rhesus monkeys or the number of pregnancies in the rhesus mothers. A possible scenario is that the researchers did not properly identify the birth order of the monkeys, altering, severely, the accuracy of the data collected.
Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened by providing detail information about how the researchers conducted and it would be plausible to conclude for the rhesus monkey not for all. Because it is easy to see that there are still some omissions in the argument which does not tackle as a result it leaves the reader questioning, not only, the accuracy of such a statement, but also the accuracy with which the study was conducted and the validity and generalizability of any data collected.

Votes
Average: 2.9 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, furthermore, if, moreover, so, still, then, therefore, third, while, in addition, kind of, as a result

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2527.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 477.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29769392034 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67336384929 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95652343364 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446540880503 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 796.5 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 72.1631178022 57.8364921388 125% => OK
Chars per sentence: 148.647058824 119.503703932 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0588235294 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.64705882353 5.70786347227 134% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.201575416488 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0703307367502 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0851336203145 0.0701772020484 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121212086341 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0761497514573 0.0628817314937 121% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.6 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.6 48.3550499002 72% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?

---------------------

Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.

samples:
https://www.testbig.com/story/gre-argument-essay-topic-2-outline

----------------------------

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 477 350
No. of Characters: 2472 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.673 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.182 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.86 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 110 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.647 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.337 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.102 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5