The following appeared in a newsletter published by the Appleton school district.
"In a recent study more than 5,000 adolescents were asked how often they ate meals with their families. Almost 30 percent of the teens said they ate at least seven meals per week with their families. Furthermore, according to the same survey, teens who reported having the most family meals per week were also the ones least likely to have tried illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Family meals were also associated with lower rates of problems such as low grades in school, low self-esteem, and depression. We therefore recommend that families have as many meals together as possible. We predict that doing so will greatly benefit adolescents and turn troubled teens away from bad behaviors."
Write a response in which you discuss which questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation
The author seems very adamant in making a recommendation for families to have meals together to reduce the rate of illegal activities by adolescents in a family and also enhance their academic performance. The author bases his recommendation on the data of recently conducted survey of more than 5000 students. Had the author provided enough support for his premises, the recommendation that he made could have been considered credible. However, as it stands now, the effectiveness of the recommendation relies heavily on following two questions, which need proper answer before the plausibility of given recommendation be evaluated.
First of all, the author seems very confident regarding the correlation of family meal time with good etiquette as well as sound academics of adolescents of the family. Could there be no other factors that impact such a broad level of activities? The survey based on one-dimensional study of family meal time in relation with general behaviors of all adolescents in a whole seems very far-fetched. Maybe the overall family environment and the way childen were raised was instrumental in determining how they turned out in their adolescence period. Along with that, the factors like good guidance in school, peer influence, and various other factors could come into play, which might effect the confidence level, academic performance and deposition of an adolescent.
Moreover, the author seems to present his finding of the survey in a very figurative and non-precise approach. The author vaguely mentions that the teens who reported having most family meals per weeks were the ones who were least likely to have tried illegual drugs. How much is the most and what decides the less likely in this survey? Also, the whole validity of a survey relies heavily upon the authenticity of the collected data. How can we readers be sure that the data collected from those adolescents are accurate and not misleading. The possibility of those adolescents hiding their bad habits can not be ruled out.
To conclude, the author firmly recommends that families have as many meals together as possible. While the overall idea of families having meal together might be good in term of social harmony, its correlation with adoloescents to keep them away from bad behavior and enhance their performace seems very far-fetched. If the author were to present proper answers for above mentioned questions, his prediction regarding the positive effect of family meal time on adolescent could be deems reasonable.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 404 350
No. of Characters: 2087 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.483 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.166 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.841 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.444 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.026 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.389 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.443 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 684, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[6]
Message: Did you mean 'affect'?
Suggestion: affect
...ctors could come into play, which might effect the confidence level, academic performa...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, well, while, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2134.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 404.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.28217821782 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48327461151 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91175813853 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.532178217822 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 684.0 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.4453363832 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.555555556 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4444444444 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.19476629745 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.062740003297 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0479977750295 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122122197695 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.026164377263 0.0628817314937 42% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.64 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.5 12.3882235529 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.