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 argument presented health professionals predict that the people residing in Mentia would experience a decline in headaches in the years to come. They came to this conclusion based on a research on the headaches experienced by the people of Mentia, the research spanned twenty years. According to the study, there was a relationship between the increase in the use of Salicylates commercially, and the reduction in average head pains reported among Mentia residents. In order for this argument to be said to be reasonable, a couple of questions which I would discuss in the body of this essay would need to be answered.
Firstly, did the study take into consideration other factor that might have led to the drop in number of headaches? The write up states that the study researched on the likely calming effects of Salicylates intake and this revealed that it cures headache, based on this a conclusion was made. It is possible that there are other factors that contributed to the decrease in migraines, for example, the residents of Mentia might have adopted healthier, reduced the amount of strenuous activities they participated in or increased the amount of sleep they got lifestyles within that twenty-year period. These are some other reasons that may have contributed to the reduction in their head pains. If these answers are provided, and it is shown that the other possibilities were not looked at, it would make the argument unreasonable.
Secondly, who are the participants that were involved in this study? This question needs to be answered because, the sample size of this research might not have been representative enough of the entire Mentia population. For instance, if only teenagers were involved in this study, it would not make sense to say that since Salicytes reduced headaches in young adults it would also do the same for children or senior citizens. If answers are provided for this question and it is revealed that there was a bias in the selection of participants for the investigation, it would seriously weaken the validity of the prediction.
Finally, would all dwellers in Mentia purchase food from the food production companies that use this chemical? In the prompt it is stated that since many food processing companies plan to start using Salicytes in their products, it would reduce the head pain experienced by Mentia dwellers. However, there is a possibility that most people staying in Mentia might not buy food items from the companies that have introduced this chemical into their products. If that is the case, then the prediction would be inaccurate.
In conclusion, the prediction and argument stated in the prompt are flawed because answers need to be provided on the people who participated in the research, if other factors that could reduce headaches were considered before a conclusion was made and if it is certain that Mentia residents would get food from the companies that use Salicytes. If answers to these questions are provided it would help us evaluate if the prediction and argument are reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 506 350
No. of Characters: 2515 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.743 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.97 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.759 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.632 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.094 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.556 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 191, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[1]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'research'.
Suggestion: research
.... They came to this conclusion based on a research on the headaches experienced by the peo...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 117, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...led to the drop in number of headaches? The write up states that the study researched on ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 150, Rule ID: MANY_FEW_UNCOUNTABLE[2]
Message: Use 'much' or 'little' with uncountable nouns.
Suggestion: much; little
...? In the prompt it is stated that since many food processing companies plan to start...
^^^^
Line 7, column 150, Rule ID: MANY_NN_U[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun food seems to be uncountable; consider using: 'much food', 'a good deal of food'.
Suggestion: much food; a good deal of food
...? In the prompt it is stated that since many food processing companies plan to start usin...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, well, for example, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 55.0 28.8173652695 191% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2574.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 506.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08695652174 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7428307748 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8509287134 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.434782608696 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 806.4 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.1179488897 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.473684211 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6315789474 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.05263157895 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.151527281978 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0528783722362 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.041837287304 0.0701772020484 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0930219107202 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0374727298102 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.