Company X has just switched to a 4-day workweek, mandating that employees work 10 hours per day from Monday to Thursday instead of 8 hours per day from Monday to Friday. Although the policy is new, Company X claims that the policy will help to increase profits by shutting down offices on Fridays and to boost employee morale by reducing commuting time to and from work each week.
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 arguments if the assumptions are unwarranted.
company X, in their policy of decreasing the work days from 5 to 4 and increasing the per day work hours from 8 to 10, expects profits due to the office being closed at friday and employee satisfaction due to the presumed reduced time of commute to work. this argument seems intuitive in a superficial level with optimistic assumptions. The assumptions made by company X seems reasonable in the sense of most trivial perception of human behaviour and cost cutting. However, the critacal analyser would see how the change of these assumptions would affect the validity of the argument. The ctitical analyser would analyse the explicitly and implecitly mentioned in the argument for this task.
company X suggest that it will be exposed to increased profits as it will be able to be closed on friday. The underlynig assumptio here is that due to the closure, the utility costs incurred in the form of light, heat and likes would not happen at for a total day, which would be of excess to that of cumulitative additional two hours in the rest of 4 days. this assumption needs clarifiacation. For example, the additional 2 hours may imply the work day dragging into the night time. In such a case, there would be more utility costs incurred in the form of additional lighting, which may not have been the case in previous 8 hour work days. thus the new poicy might have included additional costs, let alone reducing them. thus the assumption of elongated per day work hours and reduced one day is critical for the validity of this argument.
The next major concern of company X seems to be the employee morale. They convey that by reducing number of days, the commute time of employees would reduce, hence boosting employee morale. one underlying assumption used here is that the nature of the commute that the employees would take after the 8 hour and 10 hour shifts would be the same. this assumption may have some implicit weakness. For example, if the commute after the 8 hour shift falls on a more eased traffic time than after the 10 hour shift, the employees would experience more time in traffic under the new policy. this would lead to employee frustration, clearly contradicting the intended outcomes of the policy. thus, this assumption needs critical evaluation, for the intended outcomes to be achieved.
Another underlying assumption with regard to boosting employee morale with this policy is that employees would feel insigificant or no difference in 10 hour shifts than the 8 hour shifts. this assumption may not true. For example, the employees may be currently working at a per day full capacity. In such a case the additional 2 hours would either lead to employee frustration, or reduced productivity. Both these outcomes heavily undermines the two main outcomes intended by company X.
The argument, though seems intuitive and reasonable level on the surface level, contain several critical underlying assumptions. While the correctness of these assumption would shed a green light on the policy, critical analysis show that these assumption can easily be false, making the conlusion of the argument invalidated.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 525 350
No. of Characters: 2553 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.787 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.863 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.678 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.882 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 18.771 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Company
company X, in their policy of decreasing the wo...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 256, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...esumed reduced time of commute to work. this argument seems intuitive in a superfici...
^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Company
...ntioned in the argument for this task. company X suggest that it will be exposed to in...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 358, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...tional two hours in the rest of 4 days. this assumption needs clarifiacation. For ex...
^^^^
Line 2, column 643, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Thus
... the case in previous 8 hour work days. thus the new poicy might have included addit...
^^^^
Line 2, column 643, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: thus,
... the case in previous 8 hour work days. thus the new poicy might have included addit...
^^^^
Line 2, column 725, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Thus
...itional costs, let alone reducing them. thus the assumption of elongated per day wor...
^^^^
Line 2, column 725, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: thus,
...itional costs, let alone reducing them. thus the assumption of elongated per day wor...
^^^^
Line 3, column 114, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...convey that by reducing number of days, the commute time of employees would reduce, hence b...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 190, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: One
...reduce, hence boosting employee morale. one underlying assumption used here is that...
^^^
Line 3, column 248, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...umption used here is that the nature of the commute that the employees would take after the...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 345, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...r and 10 hour shifts would be the same. this assumption may have some implicit weakn...
^^^^
Line 3, column 410, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...some implicit weakness. For example, if the commute after the 8 hour shift falls on a more ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 584, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...e time in traffic under the new policy. this would lead to employee frustration, cle...
^^^^
Line 3, column 684, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Thus
...ng the intended outcomes of the policy. thus, this assumption needs critical evaluat...
^^^^
Line 4, column 188, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
... 10 hour shifts than the 8 hour shifts. this assumption may not true. For example, t...
^^^^
Line 5, column 155, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this assumption' or 'these assumptions'?
Suggestion: this assumption; these assumptions
...g assumptions. While the correctness of these assumption would shed a green light on the policy,...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 240, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this assumption' or 'these assumptions'?
Suggestion: this assumption; these assumptions
...the policy, critical analysis show that these assumption can easily be false, making the conlusi...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
hence, however, if, may, so, thus, while, for example, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2609.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 525.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96952380952 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78673985869 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74812589202 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.434285714286 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 798.3 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.2056396442 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.346153846 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1923076923 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.65384615385 5.70786347227 46% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 18.0 5.25449101796 343% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238334450061 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0703339589119 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0906030062668 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148876848507 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0863121756918 0.0628817314937 137% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.67 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.