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 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 author of the study surmises that the use of salicylates would be able to mitigate the number of headaches suffered by the people in Mentia. The author asserted this based on the study which suggested that salicylates were correlated with a decrease in the number of headaches amongst the participant during twenty years. However, the author's argument is based on an unreliable study which doesn't have scientific evidences supporting the results. Furthermore, salicylates belonging to the members of the same family as aspirin doesn't mean it is able to act in the same way as aspirin does. With these gave assumptions, the author's recommendation of using salicylates could only no resolve the problem of headaches but it could invite unforeseen health calamities among the citizens of Mentia.
To begin with, there are numerous medicines belonging to the same family but have different effects on the people depending on the conditions of the people. The effects of medicines may not always be positive, but they can have serious side effects as well which could be deleterious to the public health. Those medicines potentially differ a lot in terms of their doses, efficiency, and means of ingestion. There are forms and ways of taking the medicines which apparantly alter the effects of medicines as well. For example, there is a valid reason why some medicines are capsulated while others are in the form of liquid in bottles; some are swallowed with water while other medicines might need honey or other solvents to ingest them. Therefore, before clearly being aware about the form, doses, and means of intaking the salicylates, it is a grave mistake to assume that they have the same effect as aspirin does. If this is true then, the author's argument is seriously flawed and can have serious repurcussions on the health of the citizens of Mentia.
Furthermore, the study on the efficacy of the medicines is a critical one and it should be based on scientific procedures and follow typical methodologies. However, the study upon which the author's argument is based on, does not compare the effect of salicylates on people who ingested salicylates with food and who did not. The decline on the number of headaches could potentially be due to the improvement in the environmental conditions of the place of study. It is possible that the people who were participated had a higher resistance to headaches and may be the frequency of headaches were also inherently lower. The study does fails to identify several essential factors which could affect the results of the study -- place of study, age and sex of the participants, number of participants are some of those factors which could potentially drive the results of the study in any directions. The author's argument, therefore, does not hold water and it is imperative to conduct the study more scientifically to gather reliable evidence for the uses of salicylates.
Finally, the author also suggested in the argument that using salicylates as flavor additives for foods merely because many food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. It is always unbiased conclusion that businesses are always profit oriented and seldom care for the welfare of the people. Therefore, it is highly likely that additing salicylates in the food products by the food-processing companies is rife with alternative motives-- maybe for enhancing the taste and flavour, or may be to make people addicted to their food. There is also the need to study the effect brought about by those food among the people; the likely impact of salicylates in different doses is also another concern. Additionally, there is also a dilemma of how much salicylates is the right amount for the people to reduce the headaches. With these concerns, the author's argument does not hold water.
In conclusion, salicylates, merely being in the same family of aspirin, results based on an unscientific study and trend set by profit-oriented food processing companies is not enough to support the fact that salicylates caused the decline in the number of headaches. Salicylates needs to be scientifically assessed for its effects on human beings at different doses and if it turns out that salicylates can indeed cause decline in the number of headaches, we should research on the best method of ingestion of salicylates instead of believing some money-minded businesses and properly regulate the use of salicylates for reducing the number of headaches amongst the citizens of Mentia.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 742 350
No. of Characters: 3738 1500
No. of Different Words: 287 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.219 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.038 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.868 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 268 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 197 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 151 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 109 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.789 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.731 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 340, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ipant during twenty years. However, the authors argument is based on an unreliable stud...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 395, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...t is based on an unreliable study which doesnt have scientific evidences supporting th...
^^^^^^
Line 1, column 532, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...e members of the same family as aspirin doesnt mean it is able to act in the same way ...
^^^^^^
Line 1, column 628, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... does. With these gave assumptions, the authors recommendation of using salicylates cou...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 946, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...aspirin does. If this is true then, the authors argument is seriously flawed and can ha...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 191, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...gies. However, the study upon which the authors argument is based on, does not compare ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 902, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...lts of the study in any directions. The authors argument, therefore, does not hold wate...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 633, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this food' or 'those foods'?
Suggestion: this food; those foods
...ed to study the effect brought about by those food among the people; the likely impact of ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 784, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...ionally, there is also a dilemma of how much salicylates is the right amount for the...
^^^^
Line 7, column 886, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...the headaches. With these concerns, the authors argument does not hold water. In co...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, furthermore, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, well, while, for example, in conclusion, to begin with, in the same way
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 39.0 19.6327345309 199% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 111.0 55.5748502994 200% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3811.0 2260.96107784 169% => OK
No of words: 740.0 441.139720559 168% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.15 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.21564387372 4.56307096286 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93325418349 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 300.0 204.123752495 147% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.405405405405 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1249.2 705.55239521 177% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 69.1926390722 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.576923077 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.4615384615 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.316461418533 0.218282227539 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0923496642412 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0659353363296 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.194453089319 0.128457276422 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0665096838865 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.1 14.3799401198 119% => 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: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 154.0 98.500998004 156% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.