An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia — the scent of lavender flowers — has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
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 speaker concludes that the scent of lavender provides an effective short-term cure for insomnia. To support this conclusion the speaker cites a three-week experiment in which researchers monitored the apparent effects of lavender on 30 insomniacs, who slept on lavender-scented pillows each night of the experiment. The speaker's account of the
201 experiment reveals several critical problems with it. Together, these problems serve to undermine the speaker's argument.
A threshold problem involves the definition of insomnia. The speaker fails to define this critical term. If insomnia is defined as an inability to fall asleep, then how soundly or long a person sleeps, or how fired a person feels after sleep, is irrelevant to whether the person suffers from insomnia. In short, without a dear definition of insomnia it is impossible to assess the strength of the argument.
Another fundamental problem is that the speaker omits to inform us about the test subjects' sleep patterns just prior to the experiment. It is impossible to conclude with any confidence that the subjects benefited from sleeping on lavender-scented pillows without comparing how they
slept with the pillows to how they sleep without them.
Yet another problem involves the fact that subjects slept more soundly and awakened less fired the first week than the second, and that they used their regular sleep medication the first week but not the second. This evidence tends to show only that the subjects' other sleep medications were effective; it proves nothing about the effectiveness of lavender.
A fourth problem involves the speaker's account of the experiment's third week, during which the speaker reports only that the subjects slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. We are not informed whether the subjects took any medication during the
third week. Assuming they did not, any one of a variety of factors other than the lavender-scented pillows might explain the third week's results.
Perhaps the subjects were simply making up for sleep they lost the previous week when they discontinued their regular medication. Or perhaps the subjects were finally becoming accustomed to the
lavender-scented pillows, which actually disturbed sleep initially. In short, without ruling out other explanations for the third week's results, the speaker cannot confidently identify what caused the subjects to sleep longer and more soundly that week.
Two final problems with the argument involve the experimental process. The experiment's results are reliable only if all other factors that might affect sleep patterns remained constant during the three-week period, and if the number of experimental subjects is statistically significant. Without evidence of the experiment's methodological and statistical reliability, the speaker's conclusion is unjustifiable.
In conclusion, the argument is unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen the assertion that lavender-scented pillows provide a short-term cure for insomnia, the author must provide evidence that the test subjects' insomnia was worse just prior to the experiment than at the conclusion of the experiment, and that the number of subjects is statistically sufficient to warrant the conclusion. To better assess the argument, we would need a clear definition of insomnia, as well as more information about whether the researchers conducted the experiment in a controlled environment.
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| 2023-02-25 | tedyang777 | 60 | view |
| 2023-01-01 | Vraj Parekh | 54 | view |
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| 2021-07-26 | manjunath180397 | 58 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 526 350
No. of Characters: 2864 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.789 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.445 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.987 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 223 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 191 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 134 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.917 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.774 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.333 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.613 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.127 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 8 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 107, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'speakers'' or 'speaker's'?
Suggestion: speakers'; speaker's
..., these problems serve to undermine the speakers argument. A threshold problem involv...
^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 88, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'result'.
Suggestion: result
...e experimental process. The experiments results are reliable only if all other factors ...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 373, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'speakers'' or 'speaker's'?
Suggestion: speakers'; speaker's
...ogical and statistical reliability, the speakers conclusion is unjustifiable. In conc...
^^^^^^^^
Line 19, column 204, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'subjects'' or 'subject's'?
Suggestion: subjects'; subject's
...hor must provide evidence that the test subjects insomnia was worse just prior to the ex...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, if, second, so, then, third, well, in conclusion, in short, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2935.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 526.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.57984790875 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78901763229 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.03322274588 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441064638783 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 864.9 705.55239521 123% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.6050494293 57.8364921388 117% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.291666667 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9166666667 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.20833333333 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 12.0 5.15768463074 233% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.238286608273 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0721946442669 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0768465352422 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1031499953 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.084304280319 0.0628817314937 134% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.08 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.