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.
The argument claims that there will be fewer headaches in the future among the residents of Mentia based on the prediction of few health experts. There are evidence presented to support this claim including a twenty-year study on headaches and a proposed increase in the use of salicylates by food processing companies. However, upon careful inspection, we can observe that these evidence provides little credible support to the argument's conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered unsubstantiated and flawed.
First of all, the author readily assumes that many companies plan to use salicylates as a flavor additive for food, but he does not provide strong evidence to support this assumption. For instance, salicylates could be just one of the available flavor additive option in the market. Therefore, it can be considered as a strong prediction only if it provides strong evidence such as the present demand and supply of salicylates as a wide used flavor additive.
Furthermore, the argument claims that the twenty-year study found a correlation between the increase in commercial use of salicylates and decline in average number of headaches reported by study participants. However, this is again a weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not reveal precise details of how these two events are correlated. For example, if thestudy participants had never consumed the products containing salicylates, yet their number of headaches reduces, then the two events are totally uncorrelated. Therefore, the argument must provide proper evidence to support this correlation to be considered as valid.
Finally, the author notes that salicylates are being used by food processing companies as preservatives. However, there is no statistics that support the fact that most of the residents consumed the food containing salicylate. It is also unclear that residents of Mentia preferred the foods that contain salicylates. The argument must answer these questions to better understand the problem at hand.
In conclusion, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To improve the credibility of the argument, the author must provide strong evidence, perhaps the supply and demand of salicylates and the residents' acceptance of it as a cure for headache to verify the conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK.
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 356 350
No. of Characters: 1894 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.344 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.32 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.97 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.941 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.802 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.578 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 430, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...provides little credible support to the arguments conclusion. Hence, the argument can be ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 197, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'residents'' or 'resident's'?
Suggestion: residents'; resident's
...upply and demand of salicylates and the residents acceptance of it as a cure for headache...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, so, then, therefore, for example, for instance, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1944.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 356.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.4606741573 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34372677135 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07420945813 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.474719101124 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 628.2 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.2315213496 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.352941176 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9411764706 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.47058823529 5.70786347227 148% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => 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: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.158218779372 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0566950841969 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.056831496704 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0953749626387 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0286437631447 0.0628817314937 46% => 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: 34.26 48.3550499002 71% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 12.197005988 111% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.