The following appeared in the summary of a study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia.
"Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, for the past several decades, food-processing companies have also been adding salicylates to foods as preservatives. This rise in the commercial use of salicylates has been found to correlate with a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by participants in our twenty-year study. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The given argument makes several assumptions, and does several leaps of inference using those assumptions, which are not stated in the argument. The first unstated assumption is that all chemical compounds belonging to the salicylate family show similar chemical properties to aspirin. This need not be true, as slightest of change in chemical compounds leads to a drastic change in all of their properties, whether physical or chemical. For example, ethanol which is present in alcohol, can be consumed, while methanol, a member of the same alcohol family is very poisonous, and can lead to severe effects if consumed, which can be fatal as well.
The argument states having done a study related to number of headaches and proportion of the salicylates that is present in foods, but no details regarding the study are presented as evidence in the argument. The number of participants is unknown, which can be a problem, as if the count is low, the conclusions drawn from the study would not be as powerful, as compared to those from a higher number of participants. Also, there are no details regarding the people who are a part of the study, age group, health conditions, area in which they live and many more details, which are required to ensure that less bias is present in the experiments, which in turn makes the conclusions robust. Also, there are no details regarding evidence of how the participants reported that they had a headache, whether the response was quantified or not. All of these reasons make the fact evident that the experiments need more evidence and details.
Even if the results of the experiment are considered valid, the argument makes a leap by esatblishing a cause effect relationship from the observed correlation in the experiments. This cannot be inferred as correlation does not imply causation. There can be a number of other factors that could have contributed to the reduction in the reporting of headache rates, like exercise, or observance of a better and a moderately paced lifestyle, instead of a fast one, which can produce stress and ths headache. Furthermore, the salicylates that will be used in flavor additives in foods may not the same as those used as preservatives. So, the conclusion that the same effect of reduction of headache will be observed can not be guaranteed. The argument also assumes that the results of experiments done on select individuals will generalize to a far larger sample size with a possibly different composition of people.
Thus, the argument depends on a lot of unstated assumptions with a low amount of evidence provided, in terms of generalizing about the properties of chemical compunds, providing incomplete details regarding experiments, and generalizing the results of the experiments. Failure of any of the assumptions would undermine the argument seriously, and thus the reduction in headaches may not be observed.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Minimum 3 arguments wanted.
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also need to argue:
1. Recently, food-processing companies have found that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods.
2. With this new use for salicylates, we can expect a continued steady decline in the number of headaches suffered by the average citizen of Mentia.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2370 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.979 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.882 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 143 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.364 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 278, Rule ID: OF_ANY_OF[1]
Message: Consider simply using 'of' instead.
Suggestion: of
...the results of the experiments. Failure of any of the assumptions would undermine the arg...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, if, may, regarding, so, thus, well, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2434.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11344537815 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99168810643 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470588235294 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 781.2 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 59.4069887422 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.176470588 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.103750732798 0.218282227539 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0382305491438 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0475368314175 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0630234192752 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0272199487627 0.0628817314937 43% => 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: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.91 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.