The following appeared in a health magazine."The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than the

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a health magazine.

"The citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles. Their responses to a recent survey show that in their eating habits they conform more closely to government nutritional recommendations than they did ten years ago. Furthermore, there has been a fourfold increase in sales of food products containing kiran, a substance that a scientific study has shown reduces cholesterol. This trend is also evident in reduced sales of sulia, a food that few of the most healthy citizens regularly eat."

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's argument that the people of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyles compared to ten years before is flawed. In the argument, the author not only draws conclusion based on vague and ambiguous terms but also uses data from limited sample to make sweeping generalization about an entire population. Furthermore, the author makes the mistake of linking the increased sale of food products containing kiran to a more healthful lifestyle.

To begin, the conclusion is based on the fact that the recent survey depicting the citizens of Forsythe now conform more to government nutritional recommendation compared to ten years before is true representative of the entire population. Although the recent survey might not represent the entire population of Forsythe. In order to make the argument strong and conclusive the author needs to provide the number of people which participated in the recent survey and what number of people responsed in the observing the governmental nutritional recommendation. If proper statistics are provided regarding the recent survey, this would surely made the author's argument more strong and conclusive. Since the author does not provide any information regarding the number of people who participated in the recent survey, it is impossible to conclude that the citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyle.

Secondly, the conclusion is based on some vague and ambiguous terms like more, most and reduces. Here the author assumes that more means significantly more, most means large number of people and reduces means a large reduction. But these terms can have many different interpretations. For example the author has cited the example of food products containing kiran, a substance that reduces cholesterol. The word reduce used here needs to be define, it is possible that the kiran might reduce the cholesterol by only 1 percent than the increase sale of food product containg kiran can make the author's argument unwarranted. The argument can be made strong if the author define these terms.If proper definition of these vague terms are provided, this would certainly made the author's more plausible. Since the author does not provide any information regarding these ambiguous terms,it is impossible to conclude that the citizens of Forsythe have adopted more healthful lifestyle.

Thirdly, the conclusion is based on the trend of increase sale of food products containing kiran which means more people of Forsythe are leading a more healthful lifestyle. The evidence provided for kiran is that it reduces cholesterol therefore it is more healthier thing to consume. But food product containing kiran can have negative implications on different organs of human being. Therefore the author needs to consider and discuss the impact of kiran on different body organs. Therefore the argument can be made strong if a more detailed biological analysis of food containing kiran is done and presented in the argument. And by looking at such detailed biological analysis we can conclude really whether kiran is beneficial for health or not. Since the author does not provide any information regarding the biological analysis of kiran, it is impossible to conclude that more consumption of kiran means more healthful lifestyle.

The argument can be strengthened if the author provided information regarding the number of people which participated in the recent survey. The argument could further be strengthened if the author were to define key terms as well as define relation between kiran and healthful lifestyle. As it stands, however, the argument is flawed for the reasons indicated.

Votes
Average: 7 (2 votes)
This essay topic by users
Post date Users Rates Link to Content
2015-03-02 hussain shaikh 70 view
Essay Categories

Comments

needs to be define
needs to be defined

if the author define these terms
if the author defines these terms

Sentence: In order to make the argument strong and conclusive the author needs to provide the number of people which participated in the recent survey and what number of people responsed in the observing the governmental nutritional recommendation.
Error: responsed Suggestion: responded

Sentence: The word reduce used here needs to be define, it is possible that the kiran might reduce the cholesterol by only 1 percent than the increase sale of food product containg kiran can make the author's argument unwarranted.
Error: containg Suggestion: containing

argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- need to argue against ' This trend is also evident in reduced sales of sulia, a food that few of the most healthy citizens regularly eat.'

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 574 350
No. of Characters: 3032 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.895 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.282 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.812 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 236 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 173 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 142 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.96 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.022 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.76 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.542 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5