Please comment

[dogood]

ESSAY QUESTION: The following appeared in a medical magazine:
"Art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals who suffer from either physical or mental illnesses. However, most doctors rarely recommend to patients some form of art or music therapy. Instead, doctors focus almost all of their attention on costly drug treatments and invasive procedures that carry serious risks and side-effects. By focusing on these expensive procedures rather than low-cost treatments such as art and music therapy, doctors are doing a disservice to their patients and contributing to the rising cost of health care in the United States."


My RESPONSE: In the argument above the author has made an interesting point about the effectiveness of alternative healing methods such as music and art as compared to drug treatment. However the argument is based on many assumtions and lacks sufficient evidence to appeal the reader.

When the author states, "Art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals who suffer from either physical or mental illnesses", he assumes that these two forms of healing methods apply effectively to all the illness that human beings suffer from. It has been known that art and music have healing effects on humans maybe because of psychological reasons. But humans are faced with illnesses which are genetic and can only be treated by drugs. Can Music therapy or Art therapy always work? Based on what has been stated we can't agree.

Also, the author states that drug treatments are more expensive than treatments of using art and music. First of all the art and music based treatments are not that common in the society nor are there standardized practices for them. A patient can actually end up spending more on an illness which could have been cured by a simple medicine and for which he went for a music therapy which took 5 sessions. So the statement that doctors always recommend expensive procedures and raise the cost of health care does not have sufficient supporting evidence.

I believe if the author provides more statistics about the effectiveness and cost of the alternative means of treatment mentioned above, the argument will be more convincing and less controversial. There are better alternatives than drug treatment, but these alternatives need to be evaluated carefully and their effectiveness has to be understood in order for them to be effective.

As discussed above, the argument is based on few assumptions and does not provide the reader with sufficient evidence about the effectiveness of arwork and music as a healing method. All these reasons make the argument less convincing and more contoriversial.

[G.Unit]

Good job! I have highlighted some areas that could be improved.. Good luck

Originally Posted by dogood

My RESPONSE: In the argument above the author has made an interesting point about the effectiveness of alternative healing methods such as music and art as compared to drug treatment. However, the argument is based on many (you need to insert a modifier here, like many weak assumptions) assumtions and lacks sufficient evidence to appeal the reader.

When the author states, "Art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals who suffer from either physical or mental illnesses", he assumes that these two forms of healing methods apply effectively to all the (you can eliminate the) illness that human beings suffer from. It has been known that art and music have healing effects on humans maybe because of psychological reasons (revise the structure of this sentence). But humans are faced with illnesses which are genetic and (WHO FACE GENERIC ILLNESSES) can only be treated by drugs. Can Music therapy or Art therapy always work? Based on what has been stated we can't agree.

Also, the author states that drug treatments are more expensive than treatments of using art and music (DRUG TREATMENTS ARE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ART AND MUSIC TREATMENTS -PARALLELISM-). First of all the art and music based treatments are not that common in the society nor are there standardized practices for them. A patient can actually end up spending more on an illness which (THAT) could have been (BE) cured by a (ELIMINATE "A") simple medicine (MEDICATION) and for which he went for a music therapy which took 5 sessions (INSTEAD OF CHOOSING 5 SESSIONS OF MUSIC THERAPY). So the statement that doctors always recommend expensive procedures and raise the cost of health care does not have sufficient supporting evidence.

I believe if the author provides more statistics (STATISTICAL SUPPORTED STUDIES) about (REGARDING) the effectiveness and cost of the alternative means of treatment mentioned above, the argument will be more convincing and less controversial. There are better alternatives than drug treatment, but these alternatives need to be evaluated carefully and their effectiveness has to be understood in order for them to be effective.

As discussed above, the argument is based on few assumptions and does not provide the reader with sufficient evidence about the effectiveness of arwork and music as a healing method (technique). All these reasons make the argument less convincing and more contoriversial (repeated sentence).

[abhijit_s_2000]

Hi,
Please evaluate my response also for the AWA:

The argument that doctors are doing a disservice to their patients and contributing to increasing cost of healthcare is not properly justified in the passage above.
The author states that Art and music have long been understood to have therapeutic effects for individuals. However the author doesn’t mention the time required to heal by the ‘Art and music’ therapeutic treatment. Most of the patients want to recover quickly. If the Art and music treatment takes a long time to heal and patients want to recover quickly, doctors won’t recommend art and music treatment.

The conclusion of the passage that doctors contribute to the rising cost of health care is not right. Costs of Health Care are not controlled by the doctors alone. There are other factors that control the cost. The conclusion could have been supported by mentioning the effect of expensive treatment of doctors in the health care.

Doctors who don’t know the details of Art and music treatment won’t recommend the treatment to their patients as they can’t inform the correct steps for such treatment. Moreover lack of established professionals of ‘Art and music’ treatment might also be the reason doctors are not recommending ‘art and music’ treatment for their patients.
The argument in the passage lacks appropriate evidence. The author states that the ‘art and music’ treatment has therapeutic effect on patients but doesn’t mention exact medical details of the treatment on patients. Medical details of the treatment will convince the readers that ‘art and music’ treatment is an effective therapy for patients.
No details have been mentioned in the passage about the cost of ‘art and music’ treatment. Citing the difference in costs involved in ‘art and music’ treatment and treatment of doctors would have made the conclusion sound reasonable.
The argument should have been strengthened by mentioning opinion of industry experts about the increasing costs of health care and disservice done by doctors.

[maxgmat]

The author argues that doctors are not serving their patients adequately, hence causing insurance rates to rise. The evidence presented is that the doctors have focused almost entirely on expensive modern medication rather than on inexpensive forms of therapy such as art and music. The argument, as it stands, is weak and problematic due to several reasons.


First, the author assumes that a widely believed phenomenon must in fact indicate significant scientific value. Art and music certainly have several positive effects and may facilitate the healing process in patients; however, the claim that they can sufficiently treat any ailment is a non sequitur. The author provides no evidence that would suggest that art and music could be as effective as sophisticated surgical procedures and complex drugs.

Moreover, the author implies that doctors have deliberately ignored the non-conventional approaches and have favored high-cost methods instead. It could be that the medical industry has conducted scientific research on such non-traditional recommendations and found no conclusive correlation between such recommendations and successful medical treatment. The author does not present any evidence to strengthen this aspect of his or her argument.

Finally, the author has blamed the doctors and their actions for the rising costs of health care in the United States. No counter-arguments to other more logical explanations of the rising costs have been presented. The costs may be growing due to wasteful expenditures such as excessive administrative costs and expenses generated due to inefficient allocation of resources by the insurance companies. Possibly, the identification of previously unknown cancers and other diseases, and the rise in awareness and anxiety over treatment of such ailments are responsible for the ever increasing costs.

In order to strengthen the argument, the author could present research results that links the application of the alternative methodologies to successful treatment. Additionally, the author could provide data to refute the other, more plausible explanations of the increasing costs.