The following appeared in a memo from the director of a large group of hospitals.
"In a laboratory study of liquid antibacterial hand soaps, a concentrated solution of UltraClean produced a 40 percent greater reduction in the bacteria population than did the liquid hand soaps currently used in our hospitals. During a subsequent test of UltraClean at our hospital in Workby, that hospital reported significantly fewer cases of patient infection than did any of the other hospitals in our group. Therefore, to prevent serious patient infections, we should supply UltraClean at all hand-washing stations throughout our hospital system."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The director of the group of hospitals asserts in her memo that use of UltraClean solution in all the hospitals will significantly reduce serious patient infections. Although the conclusion might seem logical at the first glance, a more careful consideration of the argument reveals a large number of unfounded assumptions that significantly undermine the persuasiveness of the director’s argument. If the director does not provide additional evidence to support the premises she makes, the argument remains unconvincing.
First and foremost, the director bases the main conclusion on a laboratory study, which presumably showed a significant decrease in the bacteria population when UltraClean was used compared to the regular hand soap currently used in the hospital. However, there is no information about the validity of this study, the methods used to conduct it and the participants involved. Did the researchers try to contain confounding factors that may affect the results of the study? If, for example, researchers studied the effects of the soap by recruiting participants, did they make sure to randomize participants across conditions? If not individual differences might affect the results. For instance, if healthier participants were participated in the UltraClean condition, their organism might be more capable of effectively fighting the infections, and therefore the validity of the results is compromised. More information about the study would help the director to better support her argument.
Second, the director attempts to back her claim by referring to the results of a test conducted in one of the hospitals. She supports that after using UltraClean in Worby hospital fewer cases of infections took place in comparison to the other hospitals. However, if fewer patients were admitted to this hospital during the test, then there is no way to evaluate the effect of the proposed liquid. Also, the patients hospitalized in this specific hospital might be different form those in the other hospitals and therefore a comparison is not valid. The director could strengthen her position by providing information about the percentage of the patients infected in the Worby hospital during the test compared to the previous percentage of infection prior to the use of UltraClean.
Finally, the author claims that serious infections will be reduced from the use of UltraClean soap. However, the evidence about the reduction of infections from the laboratory study and the test refer to reduction of infections in general, not to the degree of seriousness of the infection. The soap might be indeed effective in reducing infections. However, its effectiveness might be constrained to the minor infections. More severe cases might not be prevented from the administration of the UltraClean soap. Therefore, the director needs to provide more evidence about whether the effects of the soap are sensitive to the type of bacterial infection.
In conclusion, the argument made to support the main conclusion is lacking, because important pieces of information are not provided. Should the author attempt to provide additional information to prove the assumptions made, the argument will be significantly more convincing.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK. we should never argue against the survey/study/test itself. we may argue like:
1. Maybe the 40 percent reduction in the bacteria population could be explained by the high concentration used.
2. It is a laboratory study, while it may have its own situations applied.
argument 2 -- partly OK. we may argue:
There could be other reasons that could account for the scant cases of infection. Number of patients could be one such reason. If the number of patients reduced say from 100 to 20 during the time period when the study was conducted, then it could justify the fewer cases. Moreover if the patients admitted were suffering from minor injurious or were in the hospital for only few days , no time for the manifestation of the symptoms, then it could also rationalize the result of study.
argument 3 -- not OK. Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
Therefore, to prevent serious patient infections, we should supply UltraClean at all hand-washing stations throughout our hospital system
we may argue:
Maybe there are other factors that lead to the serious infections like immunity or food. Thus the use of UltraClean can't completely prevent the infections.
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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: 23 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2685 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.392 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.04 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 181 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 142 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 93 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.652 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.068 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 284, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...l consideration of the argument reveals a large number of unfounded assumptions that significantl...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 627, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ndomize participants across conditions? If not individual differences might affect...
^^
Line 5, column 784, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...fection prior to the use of UltraClean. Finally, the author claims that serious ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, for example, for instance, in conclusion, in general
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 : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2753.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 498.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.5281124498 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72397222731 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.14141015578 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451807228916 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 867.6 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.227065836 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.695652174 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.652173913 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.26086956522 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.144172296714 0.218282227539 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0424060417666 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0391938358458 0.0701772020484 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0755866450765 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0433601934722 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.79 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.