The following appeared in the health section of a magazine on trends and lifestyles:
"People who use the artificial sweetener aspartame are better off consuming sugar, since aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain rather than weight loss. For example, high levels of aspartame have been shown to trigger a craving for food by depleting the brain of a chemical that registers satiety, or the sense of being full. Furthermore, studies suggest that sugars, if consumed after at least 45 minutes of continuous exercise, actually enhance the body's ability to burn fat. Consequently, those who drink aspartame-sweetened juices after exercise will also lose this calorie-burning benefit. Thus it appears that people consuming aspartame rather than sugar are unlikely to achieve their dietary goals."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The conclusion of this argument is that people should consume sugar rather than artificial sweetener aspartame because aspartame can actually contribute to weight gain. The line of the reasoning is that aspartame will trigger the people’s hunger feeling, while studies show that sugar can enhance the body’s ability to burn fat if it’s taken after 45 minutes continuous exercise. I found that this argument is not convincing, however, the reasons are as following:
First of all, it’s cited that high level of aspartame will trigger a craving of food but the author didn’t explain what level it is exactly. It could be possible that the threshold of the level to trigger a craving of food is much higher than the amount that would be consumed by a normal person every day. As most of people who consumes aspartame is not likely to over-consume such level to trigger a craving of food, this line of reasoning is not convincing to show aspartame is bad for weigh loss.
Moreover, the author mentioned that sugar could help those who exercise for more than 45 minutes continuously to burn their fat, so it’s concluded that sugar is more helpful than aspartame on burning fats. However, the author overlooks the group of people who don’t exercise for more than 45 minutes. In reality, there’s a lot of people who is not able to exercise for more than 45 minutes, but still want to lose weight by taking less calories or taking something that helps them to burn calories. As there’s no evidence to show that sugar will also benefit for those who do not exercise for more than 45 minutes, the author’s conclusion is not sounded.
Finally, this author did not mention any benefit of consuming aspartame, rather he just mentioned the benefit of consuming sugar. One must not forget, the amount of calories consumed is always the main concern of those who want to achieve their dietary goals. And it’s well known that artificial sweetener aspartame contains less calories than sugar at the same amount. So it’s more likely for people to gain weight by taking sugar if they don’t exercise after consuming it. The author should also take this factor into consideration when illustrating the benefit of sugar.
In sum, this argument is not convincing as it omitted many other factors that should be addressed. To make a proper conclusion, the author would have to eliminate the possibilities that sugar will make people more likely to gain weight than aspartame.
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Comments
argument 1 -- OK
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 1994 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.748 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.445 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.706 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.489 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.624 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 321, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the people') or simply say ''most people''.
Suggestion: most of the people; most people
...nsumed by a normal person every day. As most of people who consumes aspartame is not likely to...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 471, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'showing'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'convince' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: showing
...his line of reasoning is not convincing to show aspartame is bad for weigh loss. Mor...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 447, Rule ID: LESS_DOLLARSMINUTESHOURS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer calories'?
Suggestion: fewer calories
...but still want to lose weight by taking less calories or taking something that helps them to ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 447, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun calories is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...but still want to lose weight by taking less calories or taking something that helps...
^^^^
Line 7, column 331, Rule ID: LESS_DOLLARSMINUTESHOURS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer calories'?
Suggestion: fewer calories
...artificial sweetener aspartame contains less calories than sugar at the same amount. So it&ap...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 331, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun calories is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...artificial sweetener aspartame contains less calories than sugar at the same amount....
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, moreover, so, still, well, while, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2113.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 417.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06714628297 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67941804047 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.446043165468 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 659.7 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.5318827169 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.0625 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0625 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.375 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.33970555149 0.218282227539 156% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.134817640784 0.0743258471296 181% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106742392194 0.0701772020484 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.203276510226 0.128457276422 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0776858224907 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.