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Prompt:
Anancient, traditional remedy for insomnia—the scent of lavender flowers—has nowbeen proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomniaslept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlledroom where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week,volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They sleptsoundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, thevolunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they sleptless soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the thirdweek, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous twoweeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a shortperiod of time.
Write aresponse in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate theargument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
My response:
There have been ongoing searches for insomniaremedies; the claim from the provided argument that the scent of lavenderflowers is proved effective in alleviating insomnia is bracing. The scientificstudy presented by the author indicates a plausible approach to examine thesoundness of the claim; but without more concrete evidence, the predictedresult may appear polemical.
To better measure the effectiveness of thelavender's redolence, the author should have released more details about theprevious condition of the patients, such as their sleep duration and qualitywhen using medication before the experiment; also, by informing the readers howmuch longer they end up sleeping at the end of the 3-week treatment would have addedmore credibility to the before-and-after comparison.
Another piece of evidence needed is one thatcould convince the readers that these patients are actually (permanently or atleast in long term) cured due to the experimental treatment. Relapse of acondition usually happen at a high probability to chronicle patients. Any followup surveys and investigations may be helpful to draw the final conclusion thatthese patients are back on track with normal sleeping patterns.
Along with the information on the patients,more facts and conditions of the experiment itself should have been evaluatedin the argument. The conclusion would not have appeared so warranted if theargument didn’t rule out any other explanations for the convalescence of thepatients. For example, it is stated in the paragraph that the volunteers were ina "controlled room with lavender-scented pillows." What we cannotassert from this piece of information is whether the patients actually took theadvantage of the pillows by sleeping on them because in real life, some peoplemay not require a pillow when sleeping. We are also unable to know how the roomin this experiment is different than the patient's room at home.
Different people may present different sleepingqualities in different types of environment -- some prefer quieter rooms, somemay favor light background music. A uniformly controlled room may be beneficialfor measurements under the same condition. But in this case, such controlledcondition may disturb the result of the experiment if for example, a patientsleeps soundly in the provided quite and peaceful room but in reality has ahard time falling back to sleep in her room at home because her new born babywakes her up every 30 minutes. In addition, any evidence that proves the samplesize of this experiment is actually representative of the entire or at leastmost part of the patient poll would significantly add credibility to theargument.
Moreover, it remains unclear why the patientsunder their usual medication weren't sleeping well in the first week and dideven worse in the second week when they stopped ingesting medication. Lackingany lab reports or statistical evidence suggesting that (perhaps) themedication offset the lavender's remedial function in the first two weeks; andwhen not under the medication's influence, the patients back tracked to a worsecondition; then the lavender kicked in their system when the residualmedication were metabolized away at the end of the second week, which resultedin their recovery in the third week. Besides the above deductions, the readersare lacking of resources solely from the paragraph to come up with or consentto a same conclusion as the author did.
The author's intended scientific approach to persuade the readers withthe salubrious affects that lavender flower's scent carry is admirable. However, the author could have presented a better-warranted piece with theabove-mentioned evidence supplemented to the argument. A larger or weighedsurvey pool, better explanations of the experiment conditions, a greaterdetailed process description, and a more clarified evaluation relating theexperiment result to the conclusion would significant boost the overallstrength of the argument. |
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发表于 2012-10-20 11:54:47
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