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.
The author of the argument wants to make a claim that the fragrance of lavender flowers can cure insomnia if the sufferers can give it a some time. However, the argument is based on a number of faulty assumptions such as not selecting a random sample for testing the hypothesis, omitting the possibility of having heterogeneity among the volunteers, assuming the scent of lavender as the principal cause of sleep and using vague language to reach a very strong conclusion. Therefore, the author could not make a cogent case for this argument and the argument is not convincing as it stands.
Firstly, the argument is based upon only a set of 30 volunteers suffering from chronic insomnia. It should be noted that in academic studies like this, one must have to select random samples by explaining the methodology of fetching those. While for reaching conclusion in such sensitive cases, the sample should be representative, there is no evidence that the sample was collected by following proper scientific procedure. Therefore, the argument is flawed and based upon a survey that cannot be accepted.
Secondly, the argument has said that they electronically monitored the sleep cycle of the patients of “chronic-insomnia”. This testing is based upon a faulty assumption that all the volunteers had similar reasons behind their situation. Even if the volunteers are collected in a scientific way, however, the author failed to demonstrate the heterogeneity of characterization of the selected sample. If there is no heterogeneity among the people, the case cannot be made. If the author could show us that he had picked up the volunteers having different reasons behind being insomniac, the case would be more plausible. As it is not clear from the passage, the argument remains very weak.
Thirdly, it has been stated that the sufferers could sleep in a sound manner after two long weeks. When it is evident that the patients had gone through several physiological changes after having medication and not having it in the following week, there might be other reasons which caused the long and sound sleep. Reasons behind omitting the cases for other plausible variables have not been described. If the argument could show us that the other responsible reasons such as not having any responsibility in a controlled and made-up environment which is not possible in real life, has no contribution in this study, the case would be more convincing.
Finally, the argument is based on some vague languages. It has used the terms like “effective” sleep, “longer” sleep and “less” tired. The question remains that what is meant by these quoted terms. Even though it is said that the sleep was monitored electronically, it is obvious that these terms have person-wise varied definitions. If the author could explain the universally accepted definitions of these terms, the argument would be more convincing. As it is not evident from the argument, we have to refuse the argument.
In conclusion, not having any scientific random sample, lack of having heterogenous set of volunteers, showing assumed cause behind a strong conclusion and using languages which can be explained in many ways have made this argument unconvincing. Therefore, I cannot agree with the author’s statement.
- 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 72
- Paleo diets, in which one eats how early hominids (human ancestors) did, are becoming increasingly popular. Proponents claim our bodies evolved to eat these types of food, especially bone broth, a soup made by cooking animal bones for several hours. They 73
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: 25 15
No. of Words: 532 350
No. of Characters: 2675 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.803 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.028 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.842 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.649 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.64 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.523 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 71, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ts to make a claim that the fragrance of lavender flowers can cure insomnia if th...
^^
Line 9, column 286, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a scientific way" with adverb for "scientific"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
.... Even if the volunteers are collected in a scientific way, however, the author failed to demonstr...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 60, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a sound manner" with adverb for "sound"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...n stated that the sufferers could sleep in a sound manner after two long weeks. When it is eviden...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 21, column 307, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...agree with the author's statement.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, therefore, third, thirdly, while, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2814.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 532.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28947368421 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80261649409 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.2494879074 2.78398813304 117% => OK
Unique words: 239.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.449248120301 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 872.1 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.3789605221 57.8364921388 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.56 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.28 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.84 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.088727600374 0.218282227539 41% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0278336929365 0.0743258471296 37% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0364248975322 0.0701772020484 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0520390020516 0.128457276422 41% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0435500270667 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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
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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.