The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal.
"A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual's levels of stimulation. The study showed that in stimulating situations (such as an encounter with an unfamiliar monkey), firstborn infant monkeys produce up to twice as much of the hormone cortisol, which primes the body for increased activity levels, as do their younger siblings. Firstborn humans also produce relatively high levels of cortisol in stimulating situations (such as the return of a parent after an absence). The study also found that during pregnancy, first-time mother monkeys had higher levels of cortisol than did those who had had several offspring."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
The letter to the editor writes about findings of a recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys regarding impact of birth order on levels of stimulation of an individual. The letter mentions that as per the study firstborn baby monkeys show increased activity levels compared to their younger siblings. The letter also regards production of hormone cortisol responsible for response to stimulation. There are certain drawbacks in the claims and information provided in the letter. The major drawback lies in generalization of findings of rhesus monkeys. Addition of some more explanations and evidences could have strengthened the main point of the letter.
Firstly, the author considers the sample of eighteen rhesus monkeys of the study as overall representative to gain insights of effects of birth order on responsiveness to stimulations. But there is no justification on how the author generalizes that the results of eighteen rhesus monkeys as reasonable representative of other animals or humans as a whole. The author should have considered taking samples of other types of monkeys or animals for the study in order to get a better insight. Otherwise he could have proved that the sample he has taken represents overall trend of living organisms.
The author then states that under stimulations firstborn infant monkeys produce twice the amount of hormone cortisol produced by their younger siblings. The writer regards the amounts of cortisol produced are tantamount to the activity levels in monkeys. This argument of the writer needs enough evidence to be considered as a strong one. The letter should have mentioned established results of any prior scientific study in support of his claim that amount of cortisol produced is proportional to activity levels in monkeys or any other animal.
There is a claim made by author, out of nowhere, that first born humans also produce greater levels of stimulation in stimulating environment compared to their siblings. There is no basis for this claim. The author studied behaviors of monkeys and suddenly mentioned about humans. Although there are similarities between humans and monkeys, but we can’t certainly assert that anything true for monkeys will be true for humans. The author should have mentioned any established source or study that supports his claim regarding humans.
Lastly, the letter said to found in the study that first-time mother monkeys showed higher levels of cortisol than mothers of several offspring did. The author did not mention anything about how many first-timer mother monkeys and non-first-timer mother monkeys were taken in account during the studies. This could have made his argument more translucent.
In sum, the letter mentioning the study to find clues on effect of order of birth on levels of individual stimulation has a major drawback of generalization of results found by studying rhesus monkeys to all other animals or humans. It also lacks proper scientific explanation for its claim on amount of cortisol proportional to activity levels during stimulation. Also it made a claim on humans without proper contextualization. With more evidences and scientific back-up, the author could have presented his finding in a stronger way.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 509 350
No. of Characters: 2682 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.75 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.269 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.853 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.577 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.904 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.423 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.315 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 300, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...els compared to their younger siblings. The letter also regards production of hormo...
^^^
Line 5, column 492, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Otherwise,
...study in order to get a better insight. Otherwise he could have proved that the sample he...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 21, column 366, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... to activity levels during stimulation. Also it made a claim on humans without prope...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, regarding, so, then, in general
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2752.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 509.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.40667976424 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74984508646 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9134599446 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.420432220039 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 847.8 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.9155445371 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.846153846 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5769230769 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.69230769231 5.70786347227 47% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.308298899109 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0898182464029 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102905869036 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173875272985 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0890937638873 0.0628817314937 142% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.1 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.