"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
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 author of the memo claims that to reduce the high on-the-job accident rate and thereby increase productivity, Quiot should shorten its work shifts by one hour, adopted by Panoply Industries plant which has a comparatively low on-the-job accident rate. To further buttress this argument, he cites experts' view that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers play a major role in some on-the-job accidents. This argument, however, hardly stands owing to many unwarranted assumptions on which it relies.
First of all, compared with Panoply, Quiot had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents last year, which assumes that the absolute number of its accidents is much higher and the phenomenon will continue. If the numbers of on-the-job accidents were three and two at Quiot and at Panoply respectively, it does not indicate the former has too more accidents than the latter; if there are different statistical standards between both enterprises, Quiot, even if has more accidents, may have less serious accidents and far less losses than Panoply; and except for the last year, the numbers of accidents at Quiot were fewer than Panoply during the past decade and the trend will continue in the future. Without more clear information about these aspects, it cannot confirm that the on-the-job accidents in Quiot last year were really worse than Panoply, and that this situation remains constant.
Based on the above assumption, Quiot's imitation of Panoply's shortening one hour of each work shift supposedly can achieve the same results: the reduction of its on-the-job accidents. To arrive this consequence, the levels at both the enterprise and the employee need to be explained. At the enterprise level, Quiot and Panoply may supply different working conditions for employees—the latter has safer workplaces, better safety education and training, and more efficient safety measures and management than the former. At the employee level, even the one more hour leisure time is offered to Quiot's employees, who may be doing such things as dating, playing and shopping rather than resting and sleeping. Most importantly, the accidents in Quiot may be completely unrelated to the length of employees' worktime. Not ruling out these differences, it is difficult to assert that after imitating Panoply, Quiot will decrease the accident rate accordingly.
Additionally, to consolidate the foregoing assertion, it assumes experts' view is suitable to Quiot that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significantly important in many on-the-job accidents. Maybe, this view aims at heavy industry, not at service industry like Quiot, where on-the-job accidents due to fatigue and sleep deprivation rarely happen. Moreover, what does the word 'significantly' mean? It may suggest that among all the factors contributing to on-the-job accidents, fatigue and sleep deprivation may account for 10 percent while bad working conditions may be 50 percent. Consequently, Quiot is not the case as experts say.
Valid though all above-mentioned assumptions may be, it then concludes that the productivity in Quiot will rise, hypothesizing the enterprise's productivity is decided by a single factor—the energetic employees. This may be true in some enterprises, but rather the productivity at Quiot depends on more factors, macro and micro. The macro factors include the advance of production technology, the availability of raw materials, and other aspects from inside and outside the enterprise; the micro has individual knowledge, skills, attitudes, and so on. Obviously, the assumption is biased and the increase in Quiot's productivity is also doubtful.
To sum up, it is necessary for Quiot to make a deeper, more comprehensive analysis to achieve the decrease of the number of on-the-job accidents, and to seek for more efficient alternative ways to increase the productivity. Only roughly emulating Panoply's shortening the time of work shifts and routinely conforming to experts' report are the above-mentioned goals hard to come true.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not exactly. suppose the accidents are about the death of people, it is still serious for 2 or 3 accidents. this argument can be removed, argument 2 is enough:
'During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours.'
we can argue about time/reason, for example, maybe it happened only for last year and for some reasons.
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK. better to say: maybe the 30 percent more on-the-job accidents are not related to fatigue and sleep deprivation.
argument 4 -- need to argue against the conclusion:
Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep.
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flaws:
No. of Words: 625 350
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 625 350
No. of Characters: 3328 1500
No. of Different Words: 293 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.325 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.878 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 249 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 203 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 142 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 112 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.174 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.675 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 515, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun losses is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...may have less serious accidents and far less losses than Panoply; and except for the...
^^^^
Line 9, column 132, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'enterprises'' or 'enterprise's'?
Suggestion: enterprises'; enterprise's
...y in Quiot will rise, hypothesizing the enterprises productivity is decided by a single fac...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, consequently, first, however, if, may, moreover, really, so, then, while, as to, except for, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 27.0 11.1786427146 242% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 88.0 55.5748502994 158% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3424.0 2260.96107784 151% => OK
No of words: 623.0 441.139720559 141% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.49598715891 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.99599519102 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00795801558 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 313.0 204.123752495 153% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502407704655 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 1050.3 705.55239521 149% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 88.4976049786 57.8364921388 153% => OK
Chars per sentence: 148.869565217 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0869565217 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.08695652174 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.384682637528 0.218282227539 176% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103419917957 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0688645001848 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.187330201829 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0769259699516 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.0 14.3799401198 125% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.92 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 158.0 98.500998004 160% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 79.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.75 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.