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 situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
In this writing the author believes that because the firstborn infant monkeys produce more hormone cortisol, hence they are more active than their younger siblings. In this regard, in order to provide more facts to support this conclusion the writer posed that during pregnancy the first time mothers had higher level of cortisol, and in order to support this fact that firstborn monkeys produce more cortisol the writer believe that firstborn humans produce more cortisol too. I think, the author has not been able to support his conclusion via these facts and the author provided unreasonable arguments that I will discuss about in the following paragraphs.
First, the writer stated that recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys showed that in stimulation situations the firstborn infant produce twice as much as their younger siblings. From this fact we cannot conclude that birth order has impact on the level of stimulation, because animals body has complex system and all parts of this system affect one response and if we conclude from just one change in one parts of their body, it will not be scientific results. In this regard, I have to remain that in order to support this conclusion the writer has to provide more facts about other parts of animals' body, and I also believe that just 18 monkeys are not enough number to make scientific conclusion.
In the second part, the writer make analogy between humans' and monkeys' infant that is not scientific comparation, since the mechanism of humans' body and monkeys' body is different, hence we can say humans' infants' body produce more cortisol for other purposes.
In the third part, the writer claimed that because the first mothers had higher level of cortisol than mothers that have more offspring, hence firstborn infants have more cortisol. This, reasons cannot be acceptable, since there is no evidence to show that first mothers' cortisol level has impact on infants' cortisol level. In this regard, may the first mothers' cortisol level leads to decrease infants' cortisol level.
In brief, as I discussed in the previous paragraphs, the writer believes that because the firstborn infants produce more cortisol than their younger siblings, hence they are more active. In contrast, I argued that this conclusion cannot be scientific, since the writer did not provide enough facts for us.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 385 350
No. of Characters: 1925 1500
No. of Different Words: 142 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.43 4.7
Average Word Length: 5 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.302 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.083 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.376 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 1 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.461 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.709 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.223 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...uce more cortisol for other purposes. In the third part, the writer claimed that...
^^
Line 7, column 264, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'mothers'' or 'mother's'?
Suggestion: mothers'; mother's
...there is no evidence to show that first mothers cortisol level has impact on infants co...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 301, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'infants'' or 'infant's'?
Suggestion: infants'; infant's
...st mothers cortisol level has impact on infants cortisol level. In this regard, may the...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 355, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'mothers'' or 'mother's'?
Suggestion: mothers'; mother's
...ol level. In this regard, may the first mothers cortisol level leads to decrease infant...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 188, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...r siblings, hence they are more active. In contrast, I argued that this conclusion...
^^
Line 13, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d not provide enough facts for us.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, if, may, second, so, third, as to, i think, in brief, in contrast
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1980.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 385.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14285714286 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4296068528 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.39099903187 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 150.0 204.123752495 73% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.38961038961 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 599.4 705.55239521 85% => 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: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 13.0 4.22255489022 308% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 63.111453442 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 165.0 119.503703932 138% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.0833333333 23.324526521 138% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.08333333333 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.13893259067 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0647971808872 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0529790013506 0.0701772020484 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0826770349562 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0665857886089 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.0 48.3550499002 81% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 98.500998004 67% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.