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 argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the author rests the argument on foundationless assumptions including there are similarities to the two cities that can allow for comparisons to be made, there are no other factors contributing to the perceived outcomes and does not elaborate on the statements made in the argument. Concluding the health benefits of a relaxed paced life in Leeville explains the reasons for fewer sick days and a lower number of diagnosis of stress-related illnesses, is unreasonable.
Firstly, the argument fails to provide evidence to justify the reasoning to compare Leeville and Masonton. The author states Leeville is a small town and Masonton is a large city but does not include the exact number of populations of either. It is possible that Leeville is a town with only 100 residents and there are 10,000 people residing in Masonton. If this were the case, the sample populations in both areas are too disparate to draw similarities and conclusions regarding to health benefits, leading to an illogical comparison of the areas. Moreover, the author implies that Masonton does not provide a relaxed life, but it could be that Masonton is not a busy city and also provides the luxuries of a relaxed paced life. This would further make the argument questionable. On the other hand, if the author presented information that life in Masonton was quick paced compared to Leeville, the argument would deem to be more plausible. In either case, the argument does not include reasons to compare the two cities.
Additionally, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine, Masonton is indeed a quick paced city and there is credible reasoning to compare them, it is still unjust to conclude the health benefits seen in Leeville are due to the relaxed life based solely on that piece of evidence. So, the author continues to ignore to account for other factors that could be showing the trend seen. For example, the diagnosis of stress-related illness is lower in Leeville than in Masonton but this could be because the access to doctors in the small town of Leeville is lower than Mason. This distinction could be the reason that the citizens of Masonton are getting diagnosed with illnesses more. In other words, it is not that Leeville has less citizens with stress-related illnesses instead, less diagnosed citizens, which is not equal to less stress-related illnesses in the area. If the author presented data that showed the access to healthcare in the two areas were the same, the argument would be strengthened.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions made by the argument, the author fails to provide a compelling case to prove the health benefits seen in Leeville are because of its relaxed paced lifestyle.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2298 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.974 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.79 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.316 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.682 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.485 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 750, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun citizens is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ther words, it is not that Leeville has less citizens with stress-related illnesses ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, moreover, regarding, so, still, then, for example, as a result, in other words, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2352.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09090909091 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86201539133 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.426406926407 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 750.6 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.0924222044 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.789473684 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3157894737 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.73684210526 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.254859052915 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0846386720399 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.105111866214 0.0701772020484 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145113692807 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0804032648058 0.0628817314937 128% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.