"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades, food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The above argument points to the increasing use of salicylates, and correlates how to has lead to decreased headaches, and thus comes to the conclusion that headache will keep on decreasing. However the statements glosses over and rushes to a premptive conclusion without giving specific consideration to other possible factors and does not bother to scrutinize its examples.
The study first points to the similarity between aspirin and salicylates to insidously suggest that salicylates can perform the same activity as an aspirin. I use the word “insidious” to point out that this statement is dangerously misleading. Various chemicals of the same family have been found to perform disparate activities in various circumstances. Just because salicylates composition is similar to aspirin, does not inherently suggest that it would not end up poisoning your body. A scientific study needs to be carried out to get a full understanding of the effects of salicylates.
The presence of salicylates in natural food products is stated, and then it points to the increase in added salicylates leading decreased headache. However, the amount of salicylates added is not specified. It could very well be the case that the amount being added is insignificant to the amount already presence in the food, so in other words the intake of salicylates may not have changed significantly. And thus we cannot come to the conclusion that decreased number of headaches was due to salicylates.
Even if the intake of salicylates has increased in Mentia, as is implied in the argument, there is not enough evidence to indicate salicylates as the contributing factor to decreased headaches. The argument mistakes correlation with causation. Perhaps other factors have also changed during this last twenty years, any of which could have contributed to the decreased headaches. The study mentioned should be elaborated. There should have been a control group within that study, which could have lead us to make an empirical analysis on the effects of salicylates.
Salicylates may very well have been a contributing factor to decreased headache. But, the above argument is biased to a premptive conclusion and fails to point to a scientific correlation. And thus does not provide sufficient evidence and examples to convince us to come the study’s desired conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1939 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.212 4.6
Word Length SD: 3 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.579 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.995 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.545 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 192, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
... that headache will keep on decreasing. However the statements glosses over and rushes ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 552, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... an empirical analysis on the effects of salicylates. Salicylates may very well...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, so, then, thus, well, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2001.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 372.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.37903225806 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39173103935 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.21343056086 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.494623655914 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 646.2 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 46.8359546524 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.315789474 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5789473684 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.78947368421 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.249428962128 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0742268029058 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0637392308307 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128626679155 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0647215574231 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
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: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.