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
The writer argues that daily use of fish oil would prevent colds and reduce absenteeism. It is based on the premises that in nearby city, fish consumption is found to be high and it is correlated with the fewer number of visits to doctors for treatment of colds and the most frequent cause of absenteeism in West Meria is colds. The argument seems true at first sight, however, on deeper analysis it becomes clear that certain relevant aspects have not been taken into account, leading to a number of unverified evidences and logical flaws.
One such evidence is the unverified analogy, between East Meria and West Meria, which may not be same or similar in these two locations. It is believed that two locations are inherently different in terms of their temperatures, geographical conditions, quality of water and air and everyday activities of the citizens. For example, it is likely that the temperature in East Meria is comfortable or always between 25 degrees Celsius to 30 degrees Celsius, whereas the temperature in West Meria is always between 5 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees Celsius. In the case of former, people are less likely to be suffering from colds whereas in the latter case low temperature causes people to catch colds. Therefore, in order to make the argument more reliable, the writer should collect the evidence from meteorological departments of these locations and evaluate them to confirm that environment conditions in these two locations are similar.
Secondly, the writer’s argument is incorrectly based on the unverified analogy between fish oil and fish, which would make such a comparison irrelevant. Since, most people agree that fish oil is prepared by adding other ingredients to the oil extracted from fish and it goes under chemical treatment for few days and this mixture be preserved for days before making it available to the consumers. Therefore, the health effects of fish, which is directly consumed without going through such processes, would be different from such chemically produced fish oil. Fish may be found to counter colds but fish oil may not lead to desired results. Therefore, in order to make the argument more valid, the writer should collect the evidence from the scientific study for the efficacy of fish oil and compare it with effects of fish to confirm that fish oil works as well as fish to prevent colds.
Finally, the writer has arbitrarily assumed the unverified cause of absenteeism is genuine colds, which would significantly weaken the argument. It is widely believed that common sicknesses such as colds and cough are used by students and employees as an excuse to abstain from their duties since these sicknesses do not generally required to be supported by medical certificate or a prescription by a doctor. These maladies also used by these people in order to get one day leaves since these maladies are not required a careful treatment and these get healed gradually by the time. Therefore, in order to overcome this flaw, the writer should collect the evidence from the medical tests conducted on these employees and students for symptoms of colds and confirm that these people are actually suffering from colds
After close examination of the argument presented, it is apparent that the argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance of certain unverified evidences. The recommendations in the above paragraphs show how this argument may be strengthened and more logically sound in order to evaluate the viability of the proposed measure.
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 583 350
No. of Characters: 2906 1500
No. of Different Words: 251 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.914 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.985 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.685 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.684 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.353 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.573 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The writer argues that daily use of fish...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ified evidences and logical flaws. One such evidence is the unverified anal...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n these two locations are similar. Secondly, the writer's argument is ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... as well as fish to prevent colds. Finally, the writer has arbitrarily assu...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... are actually suffering from colds After close examination of the argument ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, whereas, for example, such as, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 89.0 55.5748502994 160% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2982.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 583.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11492281304 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91379618374 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76936672657 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442538593482 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 934.2 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 78.4246906195 57.8364921388 136% => OK
Chars per sentence: 165.666666667 119.503703932 139% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.3888888889 23.324526521 139% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.83333333333 5.70786347227 137% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0523923582657 0.218282227539 24% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0204548084252 0.0743258471296 28% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0275040899055 0.0701772020484 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0320643179112 0.128457276422 25% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0248147089322 0.0628817314937 39% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.0 48.3550499002 81% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.95 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.