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 asprin, 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.
In the given summary on the study of “Headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia," the author states that it is because of the salicylates there was a steady decline in the number of Headaches suffered by the people in Mentia. This statement of the author is based on the study of twenty years, of headaches, of people. The author, here, makes a cursory conclusion based on several unwanted assumptions. The deficiencies in his argument need to be addressed before the author's statement is seriously considered.
Firstly, the author has correlated the use of salicylates, used in the foods as preservatives, with the Headaches of the people. Here the author assumes that Salicylate is consumed by the people, but he forgets that not all the preservatives are mixed with the food, and Salicylate might be one of them. So, if it won't be consumed then it will be incorrect to say that it is because of the salicylates there is a decline in headaches of the people.
Secondly, the author states that the food-processing companies have found that the Salicylates could also be used as flavor additives for foods. From this, the author is making an assumption that the amount of the Salicylates added into the food as a flavor additive is well enough to reduce the headache. As the flavor additives are added into the food in very small amounts thus might reduce the efficacy of the medicine.
Although Salicylate is a medicine, Afterall it is a chemical and not naturally made. Thus, it may also have adverse side-effects on different people with different body physic. Hence, now it becomes important to know about the participants who were surveyed, their age groups, their reasons for headaches, whether they took any medicine for it, etc. As the author has averaged his study over a certain number of participants whom he might have assumed to be of the same health conditions. As mentioned earlier there are different medicines having different efficacy on people with different physic. Thus, the results of the survey may not be reliable to elicit such a conclusion.
Also, the author assumes that the conditions haven't changed in the past 20 years. Like 20 years back there might be some crisis condition, due to which people might be disturbed and slowly recovered from it, thus there might be a decline in number of headaches in past 20 years. Thus, his assumption that the rise in the commercial use of salicylates caused the decrease in headaches seems to be dubious.
Thus, the author's conclusion seems to be generalized and dubious because of the assumptions he made in his study. These above-mentioned assumptions made by the author needs to be looked into. Either it might lead to the inimical effects of Salicylates on the human body, hence average number of headaches won’t be predictable.
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: 477 350
No. of Characters: 2283 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.673 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.786 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.762 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.352 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.594 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 37, Rule ID: EN_UNPAIRED_BRACKETS
Message: Unpaired symbol: '”' seems to be missing
In the given summary on the study of “Headaches suffered by the residents of M...
^
Line 1, column 84, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , &apos
...ches suffered by the residents of Mentia,' the author states that it is because o...
^^^^^^
Line 1, column 478, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rgument need to be addressed before the authors statement is seriously considered. Fi...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 306, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... is well enough to reduce the headache. As the flavor additives are added into the...
^^
Line 4, column 36, Rule ID: AFTERALL[1]
Message: Did you mean 'after all'?
Suggestion: After all
...e. Although Salicylate is a medicine, Afterall it is a chemical and not naturally made...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 490, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ed to be of the same health conditions. As mentioned earlier there are different m...
^^
Line 5, column 46, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: haven't
... the author assumes that the conditions havent changed in the past 20 years. Like 20 y...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 405, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...rease in headaches seems to be dubious. Thus, the authors conclusion seems to be...
^^^
Line 6, column 11, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...aches seems to be dubious. Thus, the authors conclusion seems to be generalized and ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2347.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95147679325 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86489578746 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455696202532 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 756.0 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.9538391625 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.681818182 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5454545455 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95454545455 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.115529286408 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0383299349132 0.0743258471296 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0439674801133 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0663995160367 0.128457276422 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0368083562214 0.0628817314937 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.43 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.14 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.