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.
While it may be true that the policy will help Company X increase profits by shutting down offices on Fridays and also help boost employee morale by reducing commuting time to and from work each week, the argument does not make a cogent case for an increased profit and a boost on employees morale by working 4 days in a week. It is easy to understand why company X would want to cut down on expenditure and as well please their employees, but this argument is rife with holes and assumptions and thus, not strong enough to lead to an increased profit and happy staff.
Firstly, it is assumed that profit will increase. since profit is expenditure subtracted from revenue, for there to be an increased profit, Revenue will be greater than expenditure. It is therefore not clear enough on how the company intends to make more profit by shutting down on a full working day. Mandating workers to work 10 hrs per day instead of 8 hrs per day may not necessarily increase profit. for instance, employees might be overstretched at the end of the 8 hrs making them docile in the remaining 2 hrs, as a result not able to make additional profit. Hence, rendering the assumption unwarranted.
Secondly, it is assumed that shutting down on Friday will boost employees' morale. More information is needed to ascertain this claim. It could be that by increasing working hours, employees that have other engagements like recreational activities will be tampered with, also family time will as well be affected as they will need to leave their homes earlier or return later or both and such employee will definitely not be happy. For these reasons, this assumption is proof invalid.
In conclusion, In as much as reducing expenditure to maximize profit and also having happy staff are crucial in the development of any enterprise, however, the author's argument is not significantly persuasive.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 321 350
No. of Characters: 1526 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.233 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.754 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.697 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 106 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 80 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 18.707 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.818 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.35 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 282, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'employees'' or 'employee's'?
Suggestion: employees'; employee's
... for an increased profit and a boost on employees morale by working 4 days in a week. It ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 50, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Since
...t is assumed that profit will increase. since profit is expenditure subtracted from r...
^^^^^
Line 2, column 405, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: For
...ay may not necessarily increase profit. for instance, employees might be overstretc...
^^^
Line 4, column 161, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...lopment of any enterprise, however, the authors argument is not significantly persuasiv...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, well, while, for instance, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1560.0 2260.96107784 69% => OK
No of words: 321.0 441.139720559 73% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85981308411 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23278547379 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76994168448 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 173.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.538940809969 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 479.7 705.55239521 68% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => 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: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 93.153433271 57.8364921388 161% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.0 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6923076923 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0769230769 5.70786347227 194% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229206777831 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0786664173091 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0914609888427 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123737581257 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0828406072723 0.0628817314937 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.37 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 26.0 12.3882235529 210% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.