A recent study indicates that children living in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal have lower levels of tooth decay than children living in suburban areas in the United States, despite the fact that people in the Himalayan mountain region in Nepal receive little to no professional dental care, while people in suburban areas in the United States see a dentist an average of 1.25 times per year. Thus, regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay.
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.
In the given prompt, the author concludes that regular dental care is not helpful in preventing tooth decay. The author arrives at this conclusion based on the premise of a study which showed lower levels of tooth decay in children living in Himalayan mountain region in Nepal, as compared to children of suburban areas in the United States, despite visiting dentist more. However, the conclusion drawn by the author might hold water, it rests on several unfounded assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically weakens the persuasiveness of the argument. Before we could evaluate the argument, the following assumptions must be addressed.
First of all, the author assumes that the children of Himalayan region in Nepal are comparable to the children in suburban areas of United States. And, that what might be true for one csn be vividly attributed to another. However, it might not be the case. It is possible that Nepal and United States are not at all comparable and condition of children are disparate. Are the two locations comaprable in demographics and cliamtic conditions? Pehaps, the food consumed by children in Nepal is higly different from what an american child would consume, thus leading to different impact on oral health. It is also higly likely that the nutrients in water consumed might vary, as water in Himalayan region contains more natural salts than distilled water. If any of the above scenarios is true, then the conclusion drawn in the origianl argument does not hold water.
Furthermore, the author cites a recent study that shows that children of Nepal have better dental healthg than american children, despite fewer exposure to dental facilities. However, the scope and validity of the study is unclear. It is highly likely that the sample may not have been reprentative of the whole population of Nepal and United states respectively. Perhaps, the mere factor that Nepali children would have less awareness abouth tooth decay, which the study fails to record. Morover, the methodology used in conducting such a study is also higly suceptable to fallacious findings, as tooth decay is not quantifiable. If the above is true, then the argument is weakened.
Finally, the author assumes that both dental health facilities are similar. It is highly likely that the medical facilitites, doctors with adept expertise and awareness abouth oral health amongst the Nepali population is varied, as compared to american counterparts. For insatnace, if Nepali population is more reluctant to undergo dental treatment have less chance to visit doctor, altough they might have tooth decay. Also, we cannot attribute childrens tooth decay to adults tooth decay, as both are different. If the above assumption is unwarranted, then the argument is significantly weakened.
In sum, the argument as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its relaince om several unwarranted assumptions. If the author can address the above stated assumptions and perhaps consuct a scientific study to evaluate the relation between tooth decay and visiting a dentist, we can evaluate the viability of the given argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 25 15
No. of Words: 501 350
No. of Characters: 2566 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.731 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.122 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.688 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.04 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.497 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.64 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.466 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 572, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...mption is unwarranted, then the argument is significantly weakened. In sum, th...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, then, thus, as to, 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: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2647.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 501.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28343313373 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73107062784 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78549761732 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.469061876248 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 839.7 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 12.0 2.70958083832 443% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.7579166263 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.88 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.04 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.0 5.70786347227 70% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => 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: 0.348493544702 0.218282227539 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0838121686105 0.0743258471296 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.118449707828 0.0701772020484 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.182717733587 0.128457276422 142% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0949732300466 0.0628817314937 151% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.34 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.79 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.