The following report 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. Clearly, eating a substantial amount of fish can prevent colds. Since colds
represent the most frequently given reason for absences from school and work, we recommend
the daily use of Ichthaid—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.
In this argument, the author concludes that the daily use of lchthaid is a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism. To bolster this conclusion, the author points out that people in East Meria where fish consumption is very high seldom visit doctors. However, unless the author provides more convincing evidence to back the argument, it does not hold water.
The writer mentions that eating a large amount of fish can prevent colds because people in East Meria seldom visit doctor and they consume a lot of fish. Firstly, visiting once or twice per year is whether a small number lacks of detailed evidence. If most people living in West Meria never visit doctor, visiting doctor once per year is more frequent than that in West Meria. Moreover, even if visiting doctors once or twice a year is really seldom, the analogy between West Meria and East Meria might be unsubstantiated. The author fails to illustrate that West Meria and East Meria are similar enough at every aspect and are indeed comparable. On every likelihood, the reason why residents living in East Meria do not get cold is that the environment is much cleaner than West Meria, and people there do sports more frequently. Thus, unless the author gives comprehensive evidence that West Meria and East Meria are identical in every aspect, the statement is convincing enough.
Additionally, the statement that colds represent the most frequently given reason for absences from school and work is unjustifiable. It is all possible that getting colds are people’s excuses to be absent from school and work, and maybe they are just too tired to get to work or school, and telling the teacher or their boss they unfortunately get cold can avoid being embarrassed and having conflicts with their teacher and boss. In a conclusion, the claim that colds are the most frequently given reason for absences from school and work is unwarranted.
Lastly, the author recommends the daily use of Ichthaid—a nutritional supplement derived from fish oil—as a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism. But in the previous report, the author only demonstrate eating fish may prevent cold, but bot Ichthaid, and the author commits a fallacy of hasty generalization that fish oil is equivalent to fish itself. But in making fish oil, some nutrients may be filtered and that filtered nutrients may be the real substance that prevent people from getting cold. Therefore, without specifying specific evidence that fish and fish oil are similar to each other, this recommendation is not solid enough.
In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing as it lacks indispensable evidence. To strengthen it, the author needs to demonstrate the comparability of West Meria and East Meria, make sure that absent people who claim they get cold are not lying and the similarity between fish and fish oil. If the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been thorough and logically acceptable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 494 350
No. of Characters: 2421 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.714 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.901 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.592 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.7 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.776 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.598 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, really, so, then, therefore, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 29.0 11.1786427146 259% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2497.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 492.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07520325203 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70967865282 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7223354468 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.457317073171 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 756.0 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.6019694971 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.85 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.078344744004 0.218282227539 36% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0286419768952 0.0743258471296 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0293003284453 0.0701772020484 42% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0400906813914 0.128457276422 31% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0303129232628 0.0628817314937 48% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.48 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.