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."
*Downsizing is the process whereby corporations deliberately make themselves smaller, reducing the number of their employees.
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.
In the letter to the editor of a national newspaper, the author concludes that the employees who lost their jobs as a result of corporate downsizing are not facing serious economic hardship, on contrary to the article's assertion. The author's conclusion is based on various premises along with the recent report on the Elthyrian economy. However, in order to validate the conclusion, the author must provide following three additional evidence.
First of all, the author assumes that the recent report on Elthyrian economy is developed scientifically and can be fully relied on. Maybe the new job created are not in the compliance with the skill sets of the fired employees. For example, a employee fired from a software development company like GOOGlE maynot be the best fit for more labor intensive industrial jobs. Thus, the author must provide evidence regarding the old and new job of the employees along with their matching skill sets.
Moreover, the author assumes that the new jobs are equally well paid as the previous jobs. However, the new jobs may need more working hours and more effort for the same amount of payment. For instance, the pay scales of a corporate manager and a janitor are very different, but the janitor may still earn more than a manager if he or she works for extra working hours. Thus, the author must provide evidence regarding the working hours and exact pay scale of the new jobs in order to strengthen the conclusion.
Finally, the author assumes that the employees will have a seamless transition of the jobs from one company to another with any hegitation or without being crestfallen. For instance, the employees in the corporate sector usually dedicate their whole life for the well being of the company, and they could feel emotionally devastated if fired midway into their career. This might hamper them in a long run and also impact thier performance in new job. Thus, the author must provide evidence regarding the mental well-being of the employees before reaching the conclusion.
To conclude, although the author disagrees with the content of the article and concludes that the downsizing of the employees creates no economic hardship to the employees in Elthyria, these three above mentioned evidence must be provided before the validity of the conclusion be assessed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 383 350
No. of Characters: 1898 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.424 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.956 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.542 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.938 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.671 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.387 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.599 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In the letter to the editor of a nationa...
^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 219, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'articles'' or 'article's'?
Suggestion: articles'; article's
...s economic hardship, on contrary to the articles assertion. The authors conclusion is ba...
^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 243, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...contrary to the articles assertion. The authors conclusion is based on various premises...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... following three additional evidence. First of all, the author assumes that th...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 251, 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
...ts of the fired employees. For example, a employee fired from a software developm...
^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... along with their matching skill sets. Moreover, the author assumes that the ne...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n order to strengthen the conclusion. Finally, the author assumes that the emp...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...oyees before reaching the conclusion. To conclude, although the author disagre...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, still, then, thus, well, for example, for instance, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1938.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 383.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06005221932 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42384287591 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61668303608 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.490861618799 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 603.9 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.0658341783 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.125 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.9375 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.1875 5.70786347227 161% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.151237236155 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0562691146457 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.10618978181 0.0701772020484 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10716160912 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.106023836618 0.0628817314937 169% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.