The following memo appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council. "An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby East

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The following memo appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council. "An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby East Meria, where fish consumption is very high, people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the treatment of colds. This shows that eating a substantial amount of fish can clearly prevent colds. Furthermore, since colds are the reason most frequently given for absences from school and work, attendance levels will improve. Therefore, we recommend the daily use of a nutritional supplement derived from fish oil as a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism."

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 memo cites that people in East Meria consuming a large proportion of fish are seldom ail, the nutrition of fish benefits human health, and colds are the major reason for absenteeism. The author assumes that if people in West Meria consume fish oil, the absenteeism rate will decrease. However, there are a few issues render the argument unconvincing.

First of all, the writer states that residents in East Meria seldom get colds. The problem is that the author has not touched on the regularity of colds rate in West Meria. It is possible that the illness rate of people in West Meria is lower than the people in East Meria. Therefore, there is no obvious evidence to compare which city has better nutritional food.

Secondly, the author contends that colds are main causes for people to temporary leave from works and schools. Nevertheless, the statistics might be the result of the average from the sum of all cities, which means some cities might have different data from the average. In other words, the high absenteeism cause in West Meria might not colds. There might be many other reasons lead to absence from works and schools, such as unsafe environment as well as poverty. The author should provide a thorough survey about absenteeism causes in West Meria.

Thirdly, the writer mentions that consumption of supplement fish oil could aid the resident health in West Meria. Notwithstanding, the memo describes that East Meria consumes a huge amount of fish, but not a large amount supplement of fish oil. The assumption does not distinguish the difference between fish and fish oil. Probably, the fish meat offers East Meria robust health condition. Before judging the assumption, the information about the function between digesting fish and fish oil should be offered.

Finally, the author concludes that a staple of fish oil could decrease absenteeism rate is plausible for previous reasons. To bolster the argument, the author needs to afford more information about the ailment rate of both cities, the survey of accurate absenteeism causes in West Meria, and the difference between digesting fish and fish oil.

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Average: 6 (2 votes)
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Comments

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argument 1 -- not OK. The author cites the low doctor visit of East Meria, where fish consumption is high. The author therefore reasons that the cause for the low doctor visit in East Meria is the fish consumption. This is a case of a confusion of correlation with causality. The fact that the people of East Meria are healthy and at the same time eat a lot of fishes, does not suggest that fishes are responsible for their strong health. Other factors such as levels of environmental pollution could also be responsible for the difference in the general health of the two cities.

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
need a complete essay topic. They are very important for arguments:

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.

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 352 350
No. of Characters: 1734 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.331 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.926 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.489 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.526 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.777 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5