The following appeared on the Website Science News Today.
"In a recent survey of more than 5,000 adolescents, the teens who reported eating the most meals with their families were the least likely to use illegal drugs, tobacco, or alcohol. Family meals were also associated with higher grades, better self-esteem, and lower rates of depression. Almost 30 percent of the teens said they ate at least seven meals per week with their families. Clearly, having a high number of family meals keeps teens from engaging in bad behaviors."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
According to the Website Science News, the author concludes that taking great family meals prevents youths from engaging in bad behaviors. While the author’s conclusion might hold water, however, as it stands now, there are three alternative explanations that should be considered.
First of all, one possibility that might hinder the persuasiveness of the argument, is that the number of teens that participated in the survey is too small compare to the total population of teens in the area the survey was done. Perhaps teens from one section of the city were chosen, neglecting the opinions of the others from other sections, which might be very different. Additionally, it could be possible that those teens involved in the survey were given some incentives to give false reports, maybe to encourage other children to eat with their families. If any of the above cases really happened, then the author’s argument is weakened.
Furthermore, another explanation to the reason that young children that eat with their family are unlikely to use drugs or drink alcohol is that the children live a healthy lifestyle. It could be possible those children normally take care of their body by exercising well and choose not to take alcohols or drugs that are harmful to their health. Also, it could be possible that those children have friends or mentors, that advised them not to take drugs or tobacco. If any of the aforementioned scenarios occurred, then the author’s assertion that by just eating with parents prevents the from taking hard drugs is not compelling.
Finally, an explanation that will decrease the credibility of the argument is that eating with parents does not actually augment teens grades or confidence. It could be possible that those children attend prestigious high schools in the city with good teachers, which made learning easier for them. It won’t be a surprise if such students do well in school, because they are well-taught. In addition to that, maybe those teenagers are naturally intelligent and always do well in school or the children have good learning materials that improves their chances of getting excellent grades in colleges. If that proves to be the case, then the author’s contention that eating food with parents boost teens chances of getting good results in school is clearly hampered.
To conclude, although the claim that the reason some teenagers are well-behave is that they eat with their parents might be valid, the author needs to consider the above alternative explanation in order to boost the credibility of his argument. The author should provide evidence that the number of teens that performed in the survey are actually considerable. He should also provide evidence that just eating with parents made the youths to be of good behavior.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 458 350
No. of Characters: 2294 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.626 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.009 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.57 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.282 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.574 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 591, Rule ID: FROM_FORM[3]
Message: Did you mean 'form'?
Suggestion: form
...y just eating with parents prevents the from taking hard drugs is not compelling. ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, really, so, then, well, while, in addition, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 27.0 13.6137724551 198% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2360.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 457.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16411378556 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62358717085 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6895903517 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463894967177 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 711.0 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.7788000445 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.111111111 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.3888888889 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.61111111111 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => 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: 0.179109161684 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0601232105524 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0490384683605 0.0701772020484 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102163931987 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0320500458567 0.0628817314937 51% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.