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.
Author's paragraph provides us with information on a traditional medication which is touted to cure insomnia. Although, it cannot be bluntly proven that lavender is not an effective medication, it can be also said that the information in paragraph does nothing to provide solid supporting information for its claim. Biggest of flaws pertains around the topic of experiment itself, which is experimenting on ancient form of medication. The dubious methodology and the lack of background information regarding the experiment also send clear signals to audiences on its incompetence as solid written specimen. In addition, the certain terms stated by the author are vague and are left to the imaginations of readers. Based on these grounds the passage will be scrutinized in the following paragraphs.
Words such as 'ancient' and 'traditional' are off putting when intended purpose of the passage it to present viable cutting edge medication option for insomnia. Such words can clearly describes the medication form to be archaic and mostly likely ineffective in comparison to its modern contemporaries. The author also takes the liberty to state that the medication has been proved to be effective only recently/ now. Author does nothing to specify to recentness of the experiment and again leaves it to the interpretation of the readers. Such capricious statements leaves readers bewildered and confounded right at the very beginning.
Second sentence describes that the patients where 'electronically' monitored in 'controlled' environment. Again author does not to be specific in supporting those words. No reasoning is provided in selection and the number of volunteers chosen. Why 30, why not other number? Electronic monitoring can mean many things from recording the brain activity to observing bowel movement of the volunteers. Similarly, controlled environment can mean many things, from quiescent sleeping environment to testing the effective of lavender inside sprawling sleeping inns right by the highway. The experiment was carried out in three weeks with each week volunteers where subjected to different levels of lavender exposure. Third to fifth sentence of the passage is more specific than rest of the passage, however approving it to be comprehensive will be an err. Author never validates on the duration of experiment and even non medical experts can argue that 3 weeks of medication for chronic cases is not logical in any shape or form.
Analysing further, it can also be observed the author never mentions any information to suggest any form of progress on volunteers' part. It is explicitly stated they felt tired even after inducing lavender. Author does state, the condition of insomnia worsens without lavender treatment, yet this does not prove anything on the curing abilities of lavender. Furthermore, author again states the volunteers slept soundly which primarily can mean they were snoring. In this case it can be argued flippantly that they may not be afflicted with insomnia any more than they are afflicted with above average BMIs. Relating to previous sentence, anyone can counter argue on the method of selection of the volunteers since no information is provided.
It cannot be neglected that author at best has written a nascent passage on an unproven form of medication. To make atleast a persuasive passage, writer must provide name and qualification of any experts involved and validate the undertaking of such experiment by having expert consents. At very least the author should provide a compendium of the research method and strengthen its position by comparing it to alternatives. The use of strong words such as 'proven' and 'short period' (as is the case in the last sentence) is highly inappropriate as it can be cogently argued that ancient form of medications does not have any scientific roots or background checks.
In closing remarks, the words present in passage itself can be sufficient to strongly refute the author's position. For instance, volunteers feeling tired and weakened. As such the readers can also notice the glaring dearth of solid evidences as discussed so far. As it is, the passage cannot be considered a staunch sample that elaborates a scientific study but rather as scribblings that fails to justify a pseudo scientific experiment on homeopathic treatment option. Limpidly, after reading the passage readers can conclude that lavender still remains as ancient and traditional as ever before.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-08-06 | rafi_an | 55 | view |
| 2018-12-10 | MaheshVishnu | 62 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 35 15
No. of Words: 704 350
No. of Characters: 3693 1500
No. of Different Words: 332 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.151 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.246 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.886 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 296 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 236 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 169 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 114 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.114 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.444 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.457 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.248 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.438 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.046 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 562, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[2]
Message: You should probably use 'leave'.
Suggestion: leave
...the readers. Such capricious statements leaves readers bewildered and confounded right...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 839, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...pproving it to be comprehensive will be an err. Author never validates on the duration...
^^^^^^
Line 11, column 599, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ancient and traditional as ever before.
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, however, if, may, regarding, second, similarly, so, still, then, third, for instance, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 99.0 55.5748502994 178% => OK
Nominalization: 42.0 16.3942115768 256% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3765.0 2260.96107784 167% => OK
No of words: 704.0 441.139720559 160% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34801136364 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.1510191538 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94820088837 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 338.0 204.123752495 166% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.480113636364 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 1179.9 705.55239521 167% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 34.0 19.7664670659 172% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4856532575 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.735294118 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.7058823529 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.82352941176 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.160056095022 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0414272309891 0.0743258471296 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0496488896936 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0860393411368 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.040955678369 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 187.0 98.500998004 190% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.5 12.3882235529 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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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.