The following report appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council.
"An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby East Meria, where fish consumption is very high, people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the treatment of colds. Clearly, eating a substantial amount of fish can prevent colds. Since colds represent the most frequently given reason for absences from school and work, we recommend the daily use of Ichthaid—a nutritional supplement derived from fish oil—as a good way to prevent colds and lower absenteeism."
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.
In the given passage the author has highlighted an innovative treatment to increase attendance in schools and workplaces. According to the author eating fish actually gives immunity against cold. So author recommends that it is very good to use Ichthaid for preventing cold. Though author’s claim has some merit but we need proper evidence to accept the arguments.
Primarily , how the “innovative” treatment comes out is not known to us. Any treatment without proper supervision of doctors will lead to deadly consequences. The author introduces the treatment with relation with attendance . Now there is no evidence to prove that only those who are ill are not going to their school or work places. So this assumption weaken the argument.
Secondly, the example of East Meria is some what not convincing. A substantial amount of fish may or may not increase immunity. Detail investigation should be necessary before assuming such scientific truth. Does there any adequate research to find the actual reason of the high immunity of the residents of Meria. There may be plenty of reason that their immunity level is quite high than their counterpart. But only the fish may not be sufficient reason for that.
Thirdly, the recommendation is clearly misleading. Ichthaid may have nutritional supplement that derived from fish but regular use of it may have detrimental effect on the health. So before prescribing such thing a detailed study should be required. The fish oil may have several other ingredients like fat which may be threat when overused or used daily.
In conclusion the link with using fish oil and attendance is very weak. There is nothing wrong to assume that a healthy people may absent from school and workplace. If the objective is to increase attendance then there are several other measures possible. On the other hand if the objective is to increase the immunity then there also have several other methods apart from consuming fish oil daily. So proper measures should be adapted depending upon the situation.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 332 350
No. of Characters: 1665 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.269 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.015 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.659 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 13.833 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.776 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.708 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.265 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.492 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5