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 the

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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 suggests that lavender could work as a remedy for insomnia of which efficaciousness shows within a short period of time. The author cites a recent study to prove the argument. However, the author fails to provide sufficient evidences to support the claim.

First, the author does provide information regarding the representativeness of those 30 volunteers participated in a recent study. There is no data of demographics of those subjects and if the study participants were selected through random assignment according to their demographic data. The author needs to show more information regarding how those volunteers were gathered, which could either strengthen or weaken the argument.

Second evidence that needs to be provided is the details of electrical monitoring the study employed. How intensively the electronical monitoring is done about the participants sleep has to be present. To elaborate that, the accuracy, the frequency of measuring, and the method have to be cited for effective evaluation of the study method. If further evidence of the study method fails to show efficacy of the device, the author's claim will become gratuitous.

Third, the author has to give further information regarding the study subjects' responses. Even if the electronical device proves to be efficacious, the participants' sleep quality and tiredness are also dependent on their responses. Thus, evaluation of the objectiveness of those responses is required since their answers could be out of placebo effect. Without the evidence of how objective those responses are, reliability of those answers will remain questionable.

Lastly, the evidence that it is solely lavender that had an effect on insomnia is needed. There is a possibility that participants' insomnia was improved owing to other confounding variables, not lavender. It could be differences in room temperature, weather, presence of bugs, and lighting that affected largely on those volunteers' sleep quality. The author is required to provide evidences manifesting that lavender was the single variable that had an impact on the change in the participants' sleep quality.

In sum, aforementioned evidences should be provided for the author to strengthen the claim that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time. Accurate evaluation will be available only after considering detailed evidences.

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Sentence: The author suggests that lavender could work as a remedy for insomnia of which efficaciousness shows within a short period of time.
Error: efficaciousness Suggestion: No alternate word

Sentence: How intensively the electronical monitoring is done about the participants sleep has to be present.
Error: electronical Suggestion: No alternate word

Sentence: Even if the electronical device proves to be efficacious, the participants' sleep quality and tiredness are also dependent on their responses.
Error: electronical Suggestion: No alternate word

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argument 1 -- better to say that the sample is too small.

argument 2 -- better to say: it works in a controlled room, it may not work practically, for example at home.

argument 3 -- OK

argument 4 -- it can be put on argument 2. The time span is short. It takes only three weeks. How is the future response? how long does the effect last? ...
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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: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1968 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.421 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.048 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.596 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.593 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5