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.
From the summary of study stated above, Salicylates have lot of uses like preservative, flavouring agent, medicine and many more. From my opinion the summary has unstated evidences and hence it is flawed. The summary can be proved to be sound if the following three statements are addressed properly.
Firstly, Salicylates have been said to be used for more than a decade, then why Mentia citizens suffered headaches? In the summary it is stated that Salicylate prevents headaches and mundane consumption of this substance will reduce headache but then still citizens have headaches. Perhaps, Salicylate was not consumed at a particular proportion. Maybe, the substance had to be consumed at a particular level which varied for each person and thus resulting in some people having headaches. Thus there is no information on the quantity of usage to compare with one person to another person in the city.
Secondly, in the twenty year study, how far is the data reliable? Was the patients given only given products which had Salicylate? The argument suggests that patients were given Salicylate products on daily basis but there is no information about the patients whether they had severe or mild headaches. Perhaps, the patients didn’t have headache at all and had other symptoms like vomiting and stomach other than headache. Hence the data is not reliable to the consumption of salicylate. The decline may be due to unreliable patients who had no headaches but were diagnosed with other diseases.
Thirdly, Salicylate can also be used as a flavour agent, but what would be the flavour? Do people love its flavour? Are they willing to decline the use of products containing Salicylate due to their dislike of flavour or do they like it? Perhaps some people likes the flavour who might be the people who didn’t have headaches and hence the consumption among them increases whereas people having headaches detest the flavour. Perhaps it had a taste like lavender which triggered the patients and thus they started using Aspirin instead of Salicylate. Patients only consuming Aspirin might have improved health instead of Salicylate.
Thus the summary provided is flawed and more information is needed to confirm the improvement of patient’s health via headaches. If the author answers the above questions and provides evidences for the responses then the summary can be concluded as Salicylate, a chemical substance which can be used to prevent headaches.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 400 350
No. of Characters: 2017 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.472 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.042 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.641 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.746 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.312 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 491, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ulting in some people having headaches. Thus there is no information on the quantity...
^^^^
Line 3, column 424, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...miting and stomach other than headache. Hence the data is not reliable to the consump...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 2, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...mproved health instead of Salicylate. Thus the summary provided is flawed and more...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, third, thirdly, thus, whereas
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 : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2074.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 398.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21105527638 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46653527281 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74167925389 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.482412060302 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 665.1 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.6190117822 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.2727272727 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0909090909 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.86363636364 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.206792123325 0.218282227539 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0634485168546 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.060442204004 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122052516452 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0480201488012 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.64 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.