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 following argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, the argument is based on the unwarranted assumption that salicylates is the reason for steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by the residents of Mentia as per the twenty-year study's correlation between the two, rendering its main conclusion, that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future, invalid.
The argument fails to provide any justification for statistical data of the survey. This leaves a lot of space for doubt. It doesn't mention what percentage of the residents of Mentia were investigated during the survey. Also, the survey could have focused majorly on questioning about headaches, ignoring the other possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Had the argument provided information regarding the proportion and percentage of people investigated in the survey. Even then, the argument would have to further prove, the correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches.
The argument also leaves many other unanswered questions. The assumption that Salicylates is also used to treat headaches, like aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches is left unjustified. Although Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, it doesn't provide any hardcore proof that both are used for the same purpose.
Finally, the argument claims without warrant that increasing the amount of salicylates in food content would result in even fewer headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia, in the future. The author states that foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. Furthermore, it can also be used as flavor additives for foods and hence, many companies plan to do so. Despite all of this information stated about the chemical, the argument is still lacking because it doesn't provide the information about how Salicylates is correlated with the decline in the number of headaches.
In general, it may be said that the writer has failed to make a convincing argument because of the complete absence of statistical data. Also, the argument makes several unwarranted assumptions. Then the argument ends with an entirely optimistic conclusion based on wishy-washy observations that are likely to be incorrect.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 373 350
No. of Characters: 1984 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.395 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.319 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.982 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.722 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.425 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.073 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 126, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...his leaves a lot of space for doubt. It doesnt mention what percentage of the resident...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 270, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...the same chemical family as aspirin, it doesnt provide any hardcore proof that both ar...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 535, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...he argument is still lacking because it doesnt provide the information about how Salic...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, furthermore, hence, if, may, regarding, so, still, then, in conclusion, in general
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2044.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 370.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.52432432432 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38581623665 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04732576244 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.494594594595 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 663.3 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 72.0397695378 57.8364921388 125% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.555555556 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.5555555556 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.38888888889 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.284274829538 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0763288099134 0.0743258471296 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0909350026705 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.152628217002 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.101700749425 0.0628817314937 162% => OK
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: 14.74 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.81 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => 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: 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.