The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a national newspaper.
"Your recent article on corporate downsizing in Elthyria maintains that the majority of competent workers who have lost jobs as a result of downsizing face serious economic hardship, often for years, before finding other suitable employment. But this claim is undermined by a recent report on the Elthyrian economy, which found that since 1999 far more jobs have been created than have been eliminated, bringing the unemployment rate in Elthyria to its lowest level in decades. Moreover, two-thirds of these newly created jobs have been in industries that tend to pay above-average wages, and the vast majority of these jobs are full-time."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The notion that states the recent report negates the article on corporate downsizing, telling the hardship felt by fired competent workers, overgeneralize the downsizing effect on the wokrers who were affected. The study shows only the general data about overall trend on job creations, total employment rate of the country since 1999, and the data on the new wages trend after the surge of jobs creation. Although the recent study shows the improving condition of Elthyrian economy, the author does not make a cogent comparison between the previous article on corporations downsizing and this recent study. Thus, many evidences should be collected to prove the statement provided by the author.
First of all, the emphasis of the corporate downsizing article must be analyzed first, so the author can take the underlying problems, their causes, and their effects toward the affected employees before making refutation based on the other recent study on general company. It is possible that not all companies have a productive time during the downsizing of those companies and the subsequent economy condition may not directly relate to these companies condition at all. Furthermore, complete data regarding the skills, area of expertise, and the family condition of related employees must be taken before any comparison could be made. These two kind of data might not create any overlapping area of coincidence, and the study might not reflect the actual condition of the employees after the lay-offs. For example, these competent employees might be included into very specialized sectors of jobs that do not match with the growth of other companies based on the recent study, and there are only a few industries that require this kind of jobs. If this condition is proved to be true, then it is logical for them to face difficulty in finding new job if there is not enough job openings compratively with other type of jobs. Moreover, the industries that they are a part of might suffer from economic downturn instead, not like other companies included in the study who have great growth and then they can expand and recruit new people. If the job searching takes too long, then it is very probable that the employees will suffer in the long run due to depletion of their family funding.
Secondly, the author could possibly check the wages of the affected employees and compare it with the recent study. Perhaps, the wages received by the competent employees were previously way below the minimum standard to having an adequate power to live comfortably, or even worse, they could not even fulfill the basic needs in the proper manner. If this condition is true, then it will be difficult for the employee to survive when they seek another job, even if the time of unemployment is short. They may not have sufficient saving, or emergency funding in modern term, to make a living for their families. It is also possible that the size of the families are very large, so it exacerbates the condition. The author must complete this comparison before making any significant comparison.
Still, the condition of the country in 1999 and afterwards is improving, and it is a good thing. Perhaps, it would be a great opportunity for the government to improve the social security regarding the jobs safety of all employees to make sure that all people will benefit from the improvement, and prevent any damage from the efficiency process from the company. Nonetheless, to make such assumption, the author must fill the gaps of evidences.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 586 350
No. of Characters: 2885 1500
No. of Different Words: 259 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.92 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.923 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.568 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.905 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.846 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.465 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 22, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
...family funding. Secondly, the author could possibly check the wages of the affected employe...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, if, may, moreover, nonetheless, regarding, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, for example, kind of, such as, 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: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2955.0 2260.96107784 131% => OK
No of words: 586.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04266211604 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92010537223 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6492298821 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 272.0 204.123752495 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.464163822526 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 922.5 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.7323205089 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.714285714 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.9047619048 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.28571428571 5.70786347227 128% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.135058567474 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0403235922476 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0498203661523 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0856567239989 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.065003968293 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 128.0 98.500998004 130% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.