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 argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The above article concludes that the new policy of company X would be to switch to a 4-days workweek and working 10 hours a day rather than the normal 5-days workweek with a 8 hours of work per day. The author provides a couple of evidences as to why the switch would help in increasing the company profits, but there are many unstated and unwarranted assumptions which need to be reasoned out.
First of all, the author assumes that the employees would not mind working 10 hours a day instead of 8 hours a day. After working for 8 hours on a pretty hectic day, there is a possibility that the stress build up is way too much for the employees to handle. The employees perhaps would want to work only 8 hours a day even if that would mean to attend the office 5 days in a week and not 4 days. Also the total working time for an individual employee in a week remains the same. There is a possibility of these condition being true which has not been taken into account by the company X, and if at all proves to be true would backfire the company’s idea to switch to alternate 4 days workweek schedule.
Secondly, the company claims to increase profit by boosting the morale of the employees by reducing their commute time. However there is no direct link between commute time and the morale of the employee. It might be the case that majority of the employees stay in the vicinity of the office and thus, commute not being a problem for them to come to the office. Others for examples may have a comfortable means of transportation for their daily commute and wouldn’t mind coming to the office for 5 days a week. The policy would only be helpful to the significant few who have problems for travelling to their workplace. There is a serious lack of sturdy evidence which would help in validating the company’s policy to generate more profits by making the proposed switch. If the above mentioned variables prove to be true the idea of switching to 4 days workweek does not hold water in company’s favour.
Furthermore, the most important assumption made is that the company would not go into loss if they keep their office closed on Fridays. Since what kind of work the company does is not mentioned, it would prove to be difficult for evaluating whether the company would surely have a surplus in profits or get inclined more towards losses. Maybe the company used to be operational on Fridays in a certain field which has the maximum amount of new jobs on Friday in which the company deals. It would prove to be a major blow to the company’s profits as well increases the stress on the employees for work in the next week. If the above stated unwarranted assumptions have merit then the idea of switching fails miserably.
The idea of making a switch for company X as now stands flawed. There is a serious lack of evidences and facts for the company to make a switch successfully and generate profits There is more than what meets the eye like the excluded variables not taken into account. If the author can provide more irrefutable evidences it would prove to be more efficient for the company X in making the decision to take a switch.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 571 350
No. of Characters: 2535 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.888 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.44 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.463 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.955 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.813 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 173, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...er than the normal 5-days workweek with a 8 hours of work per day. The author pro...
^
Line 2, column 398, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...office 5 days in a week and not 4 days. Also the total working time for an individua...
^^^^
Line 3, column 121, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...ployees by reducing their commute time. However there is no direct link between commute...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 625, 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.
...he employees for work in the next week. If the above stated unwarranted assumption...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, as to, for example, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2605.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 570.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.5701754386 5.12650576532 89% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88617158649 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61685294959 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.422807017544 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 805.5 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.9289294398 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.409090909 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.9090909091 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.90909090909 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.315379161129 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.110006687648 0.0743258471296 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.105612501154 0.0701772020484 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.215407511615 0.128457276422 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.122628895007 0.0628817314937 195% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.02 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.52 12.5979740519 76% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.34 8.32208582834 88% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.