The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.
"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades, food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The hypothesis provided above is illogical and rife with fallacies. According to the author of the summary, Salicylates is a chemical found in many food items, this chemical was also used as a food preservative and the rise of commercial use of salicylates was linked with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in a twenty-year study. The food processing companies want to use salicylates as a flavor additive for food and the conclusion stated above was that this would lead to a decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia. The argument in the summary is weak to support the conclusion.
Firstly, the summary suggests that there is a correlation between the number of headaches and the use of salicylates, but it fails to provides various facts such as the sample of people that were participants in the twenty-year study, did the patients have any previous medical history, how high was the correlation between the number of headaches and use of salicylates. These are some important questions that are left unanswered in the summary and could be a big factor to determine if there was any direct correlation or not.
Secondly, the summary explains that using salicylates in foods as preservatives led to a decrease in the number of headaches and now, the food processing companies want to use the chemical as a flavor additive. Here, the amount of Salicylate used in food as both food preservative and flavor additive are unknown and using might require separate extensive research whether they affect the number of headaches or not. Choosing a good sample size would be a key factor for determining that the effect on residents of Mentia is true or false.
One could easily abjure the conclusion based on the summary provided by the author as the facts stated do not strengthen the conclusion and no direct correlation could be found between Salicylates and the number of headaches.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 10 15
No. of Words: 329 350
No. of Characters: 1609 1500
No. of Different Words: 140 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.259 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.891 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.857 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 90 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.9 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.293 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.436 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.436 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 135, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'provide'.
Suggestion: provide
...the use of salicylates, but it fails to provides various facts such as the sample of peo...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, second, secondly, so, then, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1634.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 329.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.96656534954 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25891501996 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90169302878 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 147.0 204.123752495 72% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.446808510638 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 539.1 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 19.7664670659 51% => 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: 92.6984897396 57.8364921388 160% => OK
Chars per sentence: 163.4 119.503703932 137% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.9 23.324526521 141% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.6 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.291301357014 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119787935281 0.0743258471296 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0897461481737 0.0701772020484 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.175372459942 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100509279036 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.4 14.3799401198 128% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.0 48.3550499002 81% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.14 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.