Milk and dairy products are rich in vitamin D and calcium — substances essential for building and maintaining bones. Many people therefore say that a diet rich in dairy products can help prevent osteoporosis, a disease that is linked to both environmental and genetic factors and that causes the bones to weaken significantly with age. But a long-term study of a large number of people found that those who consistently consumed dairy products throughout the years of the study have a higher rate of bone fractures than any other participants in the study. Since bone fractures are symptomatic of osteoporosis, this study result shows that a diet rich in dairy products may actually increase, rather than decrease, the risk of osteoporosis.
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 author of the argument states that due to a long-term study, people who have a dairy-rich diet are more likely to get osteoporosis. He/She claims that, in the study, those who consume more milk or other dairy products experience a higher rate of bone fracture. However, in order to appropriately evaluate the argument, a few questions must be answered.
First of all, what do they mean by stating that the study went on for a long time? Some may consider two years the long time and some 50 years. Moreover, exactly how many people participated in this study? For some studies, maybe twenty people are enough, and some require hundreds or even thousands of people. If the questions above will not be answered, the argument cannot hold water.
Furthermore, who were these people that participated in this study? In other words, which age group was more common among them, and what were their professions or hobbies. Maybe those who have dangerous jobs such as, firefighters, rescuers, or others, are consuming more dairy because they want to be more robust but they get more hurt due to the perils they face in their jobs. Also, maybe they were athletes such as fighters, rock climbers, and so on, that are more vulnerable to fractured bones. If these questions are not answered, one cannot rely on the study’s results.
Finally, do fractured bones mean osteoporosis? As it has been stated in the argument, osteoporosis is an illness that makes bones weak by age. Also, it is a factor of genetics too. Maybe those who break their bones are not old, or even they are young. So, until this question is not answered, the idea mentioned in the argument remains opaque.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the abovementioned questions, then it will be possible to properly evaluate the viability of the proposed conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 331 350
No. of Characters: 1550 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.265 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.683 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.579 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 95 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 70 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.55 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.845 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.295 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, in conclusion, such as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1615.0 2260.96107784 71% => OK
No of words: 330.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89393939394 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26214759535 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71073267316 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.560606060606 0.468620217663 120% => OK
syllable_count: 512.1 705.55239521 73% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.4224869055 57.8364921388 66% => OK
Chars per sentence: 80.75 119.503703932 68% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.5 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.5 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 0.0 8.20758483034 0% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 12.0 4.67664670659 257% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.111288122728 0.218282227539 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0325487921539 0.0743258471296 44% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0443256634221 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0624411965686 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0576557149843 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.9 14.3799401198 69% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.79 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.