A recent study reported that pet owners have longer, healthier lives on average than do people who own no pets. Specifically, dog owners tend to have a lower incidence of heart disease. In light of these findings, Sherwood Hospital should form a partnership with Sherwood Animal Shelter to institute an adopt-a-dog program. The program would encourage dog ownership for patients recovering from heart disease, which should reduce these patients' chance of experiencing continuing heart problems and also reduce their need for ongoing treatment. As a further benefit, the publicity about the program would encourage more people to adopt pets from the shelter. And that will reduce the incidence of heart disease in the general population.
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author of the statement claims that if Sherwood Hospital partner up with Sherwood Animal Shelter and encourage adopt-a-dog program, more people would adopt pets from the shelther and that will result in decrease of heart disease in the general population. While the argument seems axiomatic, it relies upon gratuitous assumptions.
To begin with, the author cites a recent study as an evidence of his or her assertion; however, the author does not indicate the exact date and region of the study taken, which means it is not verifiable if the same results can be applied to patients of Sherwood Hospital and residents of the respective community. Unless the author manifests that this study is from the regarding region, the author would have to provide more detailed information about the study to substantiate the supposition.
Second, the author assumes false causal inference. The author mentions that owning pets, especially dogs and low incidence of heart disease are correlated; nevertheless, correlation does not imply causation. Dog owners could have less incidence of heart disease owing to numerous other factors such as genetic reasons and environmental reasons. Also, it could be that people with less risk of having heart disease tend to own a dog, which implies an opposite causal relationship. Without ruling out these variables, the author's argument will remain unwarranted.
Moreover, even if it turns out that owning a dog lowers incidence of heart disease, the author conjectures that encouraging dog ownership to heart disease patients will aid them in their recovery process, and lower the chance of continuing disease and treatments. The author, nonetheless, fails to give evidence that people who already have heart disease will benefit from owning dogs as healthy people would. Also, having dogs could create other diseases like lung disease and respiration issues occurred by dogs' fur. The author needs to consider financial factor as well; these patients have already spent a lot of money on treatment, which means further expenditure could decrease their quality of life, thus exacerbating their body condition. Without effectively investigating on these issues, the author should not continue on his or her ill-advised assertion.
Lastly, the author supposes that the suggestion would bring win-win situation for both Sherwood Hospital and Sherwood Animal Shelter. It is, however, entirely possible that the animal shelter carries more of other animals and focus less on dogs. Morever, patients of Sherwood Hospital might not trust in animals shelters where origin of animals are equivocal; these people would rather choose to purchase one from a verified source, especially since they were ill. Furthermore, even if patients of Sherwood Hospital contribute largely to adopting animals from Sherwood Animal Shelter, it is far-fetched to assume that the same will happen to the general population. Therefore, the author's claim that depends upon unsound assumptions is gratuitous.
All in all, because of aforementioned reasons, the author's contention is unwarranted. The author needs to provide more thorough information regarding the suggestion, especially since the recommendation is dealing with patients.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: The author of the statement claims that if Sherwood Hospital partner up with Sherwood Animal Shelter and encourage adopt-a-dog program, more people would adopt pets from the shelther and that will result in decrease of heart disease in the general population.
Error: shelther Suggestion: shelter
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2684 1500
No. of Different Words: 242 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.39 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.686 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 164 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.9 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.02 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.579 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 521, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...Without ruling out these variables, the authors argument will remain unwarranted. M...
^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 52, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... because of aforementioned reasons, the authors contention is unwarranted. The author n...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, lastly, moreover, nevertheless, nonetheless, regarding, second, so, therefore, thus, well, while, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2758.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 498.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.53815261044 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72397222731 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78496320697 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 255.0 204.123752495 125% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.512048192771 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 850.5 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.0320179419 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.333333333 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7142857143 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.47619047619 5.70786347227 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.216903558583 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0659982525523 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0566379122374 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107039565732 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0676138037738 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.15 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.28 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 142.0 98.500998004 144% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.