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 author has presented a case of the city of Mentia wherein with the help of a study conducted for a long period, decline in the number of headaches has been associated with a particular chemical Salicylates. The author mentions that as it belongs to the same chemical family as Aspirin which is proven to reduce headaches. Towards the end, a new dimension of using Salicylates as a flavor additive is explored and the author predicts this will further reduce number of headaches.
The author has made an assumption that Salicylates belonging to the same chemical family as Aspirin can definitely be used to cure headaches, which need not be necessarily true. Despite sharing similar chemical structure, there is a possibility that both these drugs produce different effects after interacting with the chemicals in our body. It can be possible that unlike Aspirin, Salicylates may not be helpful in treating headaches or even aggravate the situation. Thus, there must be some more supportive evidence to prove Salicylates can relieve a person from headaches.
Secondly, analysing the twenty-year study, there are quite a few things which need to be considered. The author has mentioned that many food items are naturally rich in Salicylates. So, most of the people are already consuming good amount of this chemical. Now if there has been a decline in the average number of headaches there can be other factors responsible for this. Twenty years is a sufficiently large period- people’s lifestyles may have changed for the good. The participants must have started practicing healthy sleeping patterns and job security must have improved reducing stress and improving the mental health of people in general.
Talking about the conclusion, too much of anything, however good that thing is, can have negative impacts. It can be possible that if given in a limited quantity, it can reduce the pain and overdose can increase it. There is also a possibility that it may show some other side effects or may not be good for a person’s health in the long run.
Thus, after evaluating different aspects of the argument we need more details and statistics regarding the situation at Mentia. A comprehensive study of both Aspirin and salicylates is essential before making this assumption. Thereafter, how the twenty year research was carried out and what kind of people were involved need to be accounted. We also need to look for other kinds of medical issues which can be a result of excess of Salicylates. The situation needs to be looked at all these perspectives before coming down to a conclusion.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 430 350
No. of Characters: 2124 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.554 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.94 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.743 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.476 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.779 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 199, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'salicylate'?
Suggestion: Salicylate
...n associated with a particular chemical Salicylates. The author mentions that as it belongs...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...he mental health of people in general. Talking about the conclusion, too much o...
^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...es before coming down to a conclusion.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, look, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, thus, in general, kind of, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2185.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08139534884 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83273092993 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.518604651163 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 705.6 705.55239521 100% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 34.2185850763 57.8364921388 59% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.047619048 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4761904762 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.90476190476 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.18821927868 0.218282227539 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0589064418924 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.060782559565 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105547182739 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0691818027508 0.0628817314937 110% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => 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.