A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. The twenty-year study found a correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by study participants. At the time when the study concluded, food-processing companies had just discovered that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and, as a result, many companies plan to do so. Based on these study results, some health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The author argues that residents of Mentia will suffer fewer headaches in the future. Because salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine for headaches, a study found correlation with commercial use of salicylates and decline in average number headaches, and salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for food. However, there are several questions that need to be answered to make the argument as plausible as it stands.
First of all, the author claims that salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, thus, it may have the same therapeutic effect of aspirin. Notwithstanding, are compounds of salicylates completely the same as aspirin? Although salicylates and aspirin are from the same chemical family, and may have similar effects to headaches, the compounds of them could be really different. Maybe the dose of the chemical element that can mitigate headache in aspirin is way higher than in salicylates, since aspirin was designed to alleviate headache. Yet the author does not provide more details about salicylates, hence, readers might not be able to believe that salicylates can have an effect on headaches as similar as aspirin.
Secondly, the author cites a twenty-year study that found correlation between commercial use of salicylates and decline of the average number of headaches reported by study participants to support his or her claim. Yet the correlation that the study found does not mean that salicylates is the reason that causes the decline of the average number of headaches, and readers cannot know the actual relationship between them. Correlation between salicylates and headache can only indicate that when the dose of salicylates changes, the number of headaches would change as well. Moreover, without knowing the actual relationship between them, it is possible that when the dose of salicylates increase, the number of headaches increases too. Thus, the author should delineate the relationship more specifically.
Finally, the author claims that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and many companies plan to do so. Even though salicylate can really cure headache, is the dose of salicylate enough to mitigate headache? If salicylates are just a spice that improves the flavor of food, people would not like to put too much of them in the food, because it may cover the taste of the food itself, thus, cookers might not put a lot of salicylates in the food. And with little dose of salicylate, it may not be able to reach the threshold of mitigating people's headache. Therefore, increasing commercial use of salicylate may not be able to bring significant effect for curing headache.
In conclusion, to make the claim as convincing as it stands, the author has to address the questions mentioned above.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2312 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.07 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.81 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.608 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.366 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.206 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, really, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, well, as to, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2322.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 456.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09210526316 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80429898509 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.388157894737 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 777.6 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More 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: 1.0 19.7664670659 5% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 456.0 22.8473053892 1996% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 0.0 57.8364921388 0% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 2322.0 119.503703932 1943% => Less chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 456.0 23.324526521 1955% => Less words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 144.0 5.70786347227 2523% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.411190696668 0.218282227539 188% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.411190696668 0.0743258471296 553% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0 0.0701772020484 0% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.230614712175 0.128457276422 180% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.137455252475 0.0628817314937 219% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 230.5 14.3799401198 1603% => Automated_readability_index is high.
flesch_reading_ease: -399.82 48.3550499002 -827% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 0.0 7.1628742515 0% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 182.3 12.197005988 1495% => Flesch kincaid grade is high.
coleman_liau_index: 13.72 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 28.75 8.32208582834 345% => Dale chall readability score is high.
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 59.0 12.3882235529 476% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 184.4 11.1389221557 1655% => Gunning_fog is high.
text_standard: 29.0 11.9071856287 244% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.