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.
The report claims to be an innovative treatment for eradicating or reducing absenteeism from schools and workplaces. This measure was built on a study report nearby East Meria where the consumption of fish by the residents is high. They assumed that due the high consumption rate of fish in the area people suffer less from cold and visit occasionally to a doctor. The study leads the author to think the remedy for less common cold is due to fish in the diets of the habitats and suggest the use of Ichthaid, a nutritional fish oil derivative as a treatment for reducing the absentees from school and workplace. The report appears vague and less researched over before hoping down to such remedy.
Firstly, absences from work and schools can be for various different reasons, sickness and health issues are one of the common excuse that is easily proposed. The report does not mention any survey or observation or any records that significantly suggest that the majority reason is cold in both schools and workplace. There was no mention of the cause of cold or any other diseases which concludes vaguely that the place near East Meria only suffers cold for the entire year. There is no mention of the time of the year when this insignificant number of people actually visits the doctor. Because cold always doesn’t require an assistance of doctor, maybe there are many cases of cold but they go unreported by a doctor.
Secondly, only fish eating people do not suffer from cold according to the report does not indicate that the place does not have any vegan or vegetarian family residing in Meria. There is no report or survey of the number of people actually consumes fish and the frequency. The age group of the people who visited the doctor has no light on them too. The report lacks important facts and evident to assure that consumption fish is the only remedy to treat cold in their area.
Thirdly, use of Ichthaid will have same effect as a fish did on people have no fortification to it. There is no mention of what type of fish do the people consume, because each fish has different nutritional value and importance hence the fish oil depends in depth research before being prescribed to the people of East Meria. A comparison study of the people of east meria and nearby place would also throw some light on the use of fish oil on various subjects suffering from cold.
The report does not provide strong evidence and facts to bolster its suggestion to reduce absentees. The innovative treatment could prove to be fruitful only to a certain number of populations as it is unknown that how many actually consume fish and are ready to consume daily fish oil. The treatment is not universal to every man and hence action in favour to it is not applicable at this point.
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: 489 350
No. of Characters: 2260 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.702 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.622 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.441 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.45 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.871 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 288, 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.
...nd are ready to consume daily fish oil. The treatment is not universal to every man...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2308.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 488.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 4.72950819672 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70007681154 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50520738904 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452868852459 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 726.3 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.3840906181 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.4 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.4 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.45 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.15976847916 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0613925141975 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0679948856389 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.097901596488 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0613560895051 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.45 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => 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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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.