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 als

Essay topics:

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.

The author suggests that having a higher number of meals with family results in teens engaging in bad behaviour. The author cites the survey of 5,000 individuals as main evidennce for this conclusion.
The survey conducted on 5,000 teens lacks evidence on connection between having meals and engaging in bad behaviour. The consumtion of illegal drugs,tobacco or alcohol may not happen during the meal time. Having meals with family and consuming illegal items have no logical correlation amongst them. A teen may very well consume illegal drugs, tobaco or alcohol during school time. Bad company could be a better correlation factor for associating the consumption of illegal drugs,tobacco,or alcohol for an adolecent.
Furthermore, the author associates that higher number of family meals also help teens have higher grades,better self-esteem, and lower rates of depression. Though the author does not provide any evidence for the same. The higher grades may come from other factors , like increase in the number of study hours, motivation from school and peers. These factors could also lead to better self-esteem and lower rates of depression.
The author states that 30 percent of the teens have said that they ate atleast seven meals per week with their families. 30 percent is a small number to draw a conclusion for all or most teenagers. Also, the author does not provide any evidence linking seven meals per day to decrease in bad behaviour. These teens could be having breakfast with thier families and could engage in bad behavior for the better part of the day.
The author lacks evidence for the stated conclusion, having higher number of meals may not certainly lead to decrease in the consumption of illegal drugs, tobaco, or alcohol. Also, no evidence is provided for increase grades or better self-esteem.

Votes
Average: 6 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 2, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... main evidennce for this conclusion. The survey conducted on 5,000 teens lacks e...
^^^
Line 2, column 119, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ng meals and engaging in bad behaviour. The consumtion of illegal drugs,tobacco or ...
^^^
Line 2, column 150, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , tobacco
...haviour. The consumtion of illegal drugs,tobacco or alcohol may not happen during the me...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 481, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , tobacco
...ciating the consumption of illegal drugs,tobacco,or alcohol for an adolecent. Further...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 106, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , better
...meals also help teens have higher grades,better self-esteem, and lower rates of depress...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 265, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...igher grades may come from other factors , like increase in the number of study ho...
^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, may, so, well

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 4.0 19.6327345309 20% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 10.0 28.8173652695 35% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1535.0 2260.96107784 68% => OK
No of words: 295.0 441.139720559 67% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20338983051 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14434120667 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67795894594 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 138.0 204.123752495 68% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.467796610169 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 463.5 705.55239521 66% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.615178938 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 90.2941176471 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.3529411765 23.324526521 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.88235294118 5.70786347227 33% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.184895763072 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0721689890466 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0516817128697 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118119567651 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0543085955236 0.0628817314937 86% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.58 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.74 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 61.0 98.500998004 62% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.

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: 17 15
No. of Words: 299 350
No. of Characters: 1492 1500
No. of Different Words: 131 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.158 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.99 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.416 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 117 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 70 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 45 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.615 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.367 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5