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.
In this passage, the author recommends trying with lavender-scented pillow to treat with chronic insomnia because of the tested effectiveness. To support his/her claim, the author cites a process of pillows trial for 30 volunteers in a controlled lab environment. Quite reasonable though the conclusion about efficacy of pillows appears at first glance, a closer scrutiny reveals that such conclusion lacks crucial supports and therefore we need more evidence to help evaluate such conclusion.
To start off, we need evidence to verify how previous sleeping status of those 30 volunteers mentioned in the passage . While it is shown that they seems to have better an longer sleep in the end of experiment, no evidence serves to rule out the probability that they have improved their overall sleeping status compared with before. Thus, additional evidence gains great significance to determine whether both sleeping duration and quality have been ameliorated based on statistics of their previous sleeping status. If new information shows they acquire both higher quality and duration after the treatment, it is reasonably safe to claim that such treatment via pillow is effective and his/her claim will be strengthened. On the contrary, if new evidence discloses that they keep the same status, his/her reasoning will be weakened.
Furthermore, we need more evidence to ascertain whether pillow serves to treatment purpose of insomnia. First of all, while the fact that all of respondents seems to have better rest is encouraging, we wonder if 30 responders are sufficient samples, which lend great support/credibility to the author's statement with a compelling degree of such treatment. If majority of insomnia researches investigates with more than 30 typical samples, the effectiveness of the aforementioned treatment is in great doubt, his/her claim will be rendered much less advisable. Second, we need more information to check responders' improvement during third week. If it turns out that such improvements are caused by their tired status in the second week rather than hypnotic effect by pillow, we are unconvinced of the author's conclusion as well.
Last but not least, despite the fact that pillow's efficacy could be confirmed based on evidence given above, a more accurate evaluation of the author's recommendation requires further analysis. Specific evidence is needed to decide whether pillows could contribute to more common sleeping circumstances rather than well-designed lab environment; that is to say, whether people could enjoy better sleeping during their own bedroom or dorm of universities. If the answer is positive, his/her claim will be strengthened. On the contrary, if majority of people suffering chronic insomnia can't easily fall into deep rest using such pillows, we are reluctant to believe that the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.
In summary, the evidence cited by the author in the argument could not provide sufficiently conclusive information to make his/her claim much more compelling. As a result, we need more evidence to help evaluate such conclusion.
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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: 19 15
No. of Words: 494 350
No. of Characters: 2597 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.714 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.257 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.874 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 118 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.509 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.235 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 106, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed pillow to treat with chronic insomnia because of the tested effectiveness. To ...
^^
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...e 30 volunteers mentioned in the passage . While it is shown that they seems to ha...
^^
Line 3, column 149, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[2]
Message: The pronoun 'they' must be used with a non-third-person form of a verb: 'seem'
Suggestion: seem
...e passage . While it is shown that they seems to have better an longer sleep in the e...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 170, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...is shown that they seems to have better an longer sleep in the end of experiment, ...
^^
Line 5, column 295, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...h lend great support/credibility to the authors statement with a compelling degree of s...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 603, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'responders'' or 'responder's'?
Suggestion: responders'; responder's
...cond, we need more information to check responders improvement during third week. If it tu...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 801, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ct by pillow, we are unconvinced of the authors conclusion as well. Last but not lea...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 144, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...bove, a more accurate evaluation of the authors recommendation requires further analysi...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 584, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...ty of people suffering chronic insomnia cant easily fall into deep rest using such p...
^^^^
Line 7, column 700, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cures'' or 'cure's'?
Suggestion: cures'; cure's
...eve that the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time....
^^^^^
Line 7, column 730, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
... lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time. In summary, the evidence cited by t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, well, while, in summary, as a result, first of all, on the contrary, that is to say
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 29.0 16.3942115768 177% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2659.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 487.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.45995893224 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69766713281 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00973670213 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.509240246407 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 818.1 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.4485541666 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.947368421 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.6315789474 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.10526315789 5.70786347227 142% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 11.0 5.25449101796 209% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More 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: 0.153614249459 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0535080306102 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0602487184284 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0901668971885 0.128457276422 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0633259517887 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.1 14.3799401198 119% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.68 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.12 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 131.0 98.500998004 133% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.