Workers in the small town of Leeville take fewer sick days than workers in the large city of Masonton, 50 miles away. Moreover, relative to population size, the diagnosis of stress-related illness is proportionally much lower in Leeville than in Masonton. According to the Leeville Chamber of Commerce, these facts can be attributed to the health benefits of the relatively relaxed pace of life in Leeville.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The above argument presents us a comparison between the lifestyle between the workers from Masonton and Leeville. It is stated that the latter take fewer sick leaves and are diagnosed with fewer stress related ailments. This has been attributed to a much slower lifestyle in Leeville. This appears to be a sound explanation to the observed behaviors but, on examining the evidence presented closely alternative explanations can be provided which may undermine the author's argument.
Firstly, the author presents us with the evidence that workers from Masonton avail a greater number of sick leaves as compared to the workers from Leeville. The phenomenon may also occur due to the differences in company policy in the two cities. The employers in Leeville may have structured their policies so as to provide enough vacations or paid leaves over the course of the year to ensure the well-being of those employed over there. Whereas, those working in Masonton may have been denied this privilege and may be availing sick leaves for other reasons.
Furthermore, the author presents us with the fact that fewer stress related diseases are diagnosed in Leeville as compared to Masonton. It is to be noted that the author takes into consideration the entire population of the cites. This opens us to the possibility that the evidence presented above may be heavily influenced by the demographics of the cities. The population of Leeville could largely consist of elderly and a younger generation who are not subjected to high stress levels. On the contrary, the residents of Masonton may consist mostly of working individuals who are subjected to high stress working environments. Hence, this evidence is not conclusive enough to be presented as support to the argument.
The chamber of commerce uses the associates the evidences presented above to conclude that the relaxed pace of life offered by Leeville is responsible for the higher quality of life there. One cannot deny the benefits of a slower pace of life, but as we have seen above much of the evidence presented can be explained using a myriad of other explanations. Therefore, the conclusion is not valid as the evidence that it cites do not allow us to logically associate the observations to the lifestyle differences without examining the various other parameters involved.
Therefore, to conclude it can be said that the evidence presented by the author is not irrefutable and as demonstrated it can be contested using other alternative explanations and thus, the author is advised to re-examine his argument and ensure the credibility of the evidence being submitted in support of the assertion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2194 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.079 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.831 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.298 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 465, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...can be provided which may undermine the authors argument. Firstly, the author presen...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 309, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...ille may have structured their policies so as to provide enough vacations or paid leaves...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 568, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the various other parameters involved. Therefore, to conclude it can be said th...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, may, so, therefore, thus, well, whereas, as to, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2239.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 432.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18287037037 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55901411391 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88931082953 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.4375 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 738.0 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.7321026062 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.388888889 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.33333333333 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.145987494942 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0580521142403 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0643069275945 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0847055293668 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0612220951432 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.07 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.