50. 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.
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 argues that lavender cures insomnia. Although this argument seems convincing at first, the lack of evidence leads me to conclude that the argument is wrong in many regards.
First, the author needs to provide concrete evidence on inherent conditions of volunteers to prove its study was conducted on same condition. It is plausible that people`s everyday condition is significantly different. People might work harder during the third week than the previous two weeks, then they might sleep well because they were just tired, not because they used lavender-scented pillows. In such case, the author cannot jump to conclusion that the scent of lavender is helpful to people with chronic insomnia.
Second, more specific evidence is need on standard of good sleeping. In the argument, the author claimed that the volunteers felt more tired and they slept less soundly during the second week. However, the standard of feeling tired and good sleeping is ambiguous and subjective. Therefore, evaluation of good sleeping in the argument is less credible and author needs to suggest strict standard for its evaluation.
Lastly, the author should provide solid evidence on the soundness of conclusion that lavender cures insomnia within a short period time. All likelihood, volunteer may be slept well during the third week because they be familiar with the condition of controlled room. In many cases, people fail to sleep in unusual condition, so the volunteers might not be slept well during their first and second week. In addition, proving lavender`s effect to insomnia, the test should be viewed in long-run, since results of the third week may be an aberration. As a result, the author cannot say that lavender cures insomnia.
In conclusion, the author`s claim is unsound on many grounds. To bolster his claim, he needs to provide more specific evidence.
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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: 17 15
No. of Words: 300 350
No. of Characters: 1523 1500
No. of Different Words: 150 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.162 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.077 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.511 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 117 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 28 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.647 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.407 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.338 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 33, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cures'' or 'cure's'?
Suggestion: cures'; cure's
The author argues that lavender cures insomnia. Although this argument seems ...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 96, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cures'' or 'cure's'?
Suggestion: cures'; cure's
...e soundness of conclusion that lavender cures insomnia within a short period time. Al...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 603, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cures'' or 'cure's'?
Suggestion: cures'; cure's
...lt, the author cannot say that lavender cures insomnia. In conclusion, the author&a...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, lastly, may, second, so, then, therefore, third, well, in addition, in conclusion, as a result, in many cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1591.0 2260.96107784 70% => OK
No of words: 300.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.30333333333 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.16179145029 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74544268845 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.526666666667 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 466.2 705.55239521 66% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.4590895645 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.5882352941 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.6470588235 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.58823529412 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.196473324384 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0670577634967 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0651223016948 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0928785493045 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0703483638776 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.16 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => 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
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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.