A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. The twenty-year study found a correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by study participants. At the time when the study concluded, food-processing companies had just discovered that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and, as a result, many companies plan to do so. Based on these study results, some health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
In the study issued recently, it is stated that health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future. This conclusion was reached by studying the correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported through twenty years. However, before this conclusion can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, Does Salicylate cure headache? In other words does Salicylates has the similar healing properties like that of aspirin? It is possible that despite Salicylates falling in same chemical family as aspirin it doesn’t necessarily has the same medicinal effect as that of aspirin. Further, there is possibility that it has opposite effect on our human body. If either of these case is true, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is severely weakened.
Secondly, Was the research done on the other factors that led to decline in the average number of headache? In other words can there be other causes contributing more to the decline in the number of headache patients. There is possibility that within the span of ten years, there had happened the advancement of medical facilities which was responsible for that outcome. Further, It is also possible that people started following healthy lifestyles. If these cases are true, the above argument doesn’t hold water.
Similarly, Was the proportion of Salicylates used in food enough to show some effects in humans? In other words, even if Salicylates have the healing property and Salicylates was only responsible for the decline in the average number of headaches is the amount of it used capable to show medicinal effects like that of aspirin. It is possible that the proportion of Salicylates used was not enough to show any effect in the human body. Further, there is possibility that Salicylates used in the food as preservatives mayn't be in the form to show effect to human.
In the conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to too many unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to provide answers of the three questions above and offer more evidence, then it will be possible that residents of Mentia suffer less headaches in the near future.
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: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 380 350
No. of Characters: 1871 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.415 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.924 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.719 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.954 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.323 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.102 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 184, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... This conclusion was reached by studying the correlation between the rise in the ...
^^
Line 1, column 335, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ber of headaches reported through twenty years. However, before this conclusion c...
^^
Line 2, column 77, Rule ID: DOES_X_HAS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'have'? As 'do' is already inflected, the verb cannot also be inflected.
Suggestion: have
...adache? In other words does Salicylates has the similar healing properties like tha...
^^^
Line 4, column 33, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...water. Similarly, Was the proportion of Salicylates used in food enough to show ...
^^
Line 5, column 178, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...o provide answers of the three questions above and offer more evidence, then it w...
^^
Line 5, column 268, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun headaches is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ossible that residents of Mentia suffer less headaches in the near future.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1923.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 377.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10079575597 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4064143971 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79821865674 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.461538461538 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 630.0 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.5593476456 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.210526316 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8421052632 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.42105263158 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.354290993919 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.107434737965 0.0743258471296 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0904515742936 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.187644665091 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0853843368075 0.0628817314937 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.06 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.