The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Alta Manufacturing.
“During the past year, Alta Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts believe that a significant contributing factor in many accidents is fatigue caused by sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Alta, we recommend shortening each of our three work shifts by one hour. If we do this, our employees will get adequate amounts of sleep.”
The experts claim that if the work-shifts are shortened by an hour each, it would help reduce significantly the number of on-the-job accidents. This conclusion is arrived from the evidence that the number of incidents at Panoply Industries is 30% lesser since their work shifts are one hour shorter and their workers are not deprived of sleep. However, the experts make some unstated assumptions in arriving at the conclusion given the evidence. They are as follows.
Firstly, they assume that the accidents are mainly caused by the mistakes the workers make due to sleep deprivation which could be flawed. They could be using bad machinery which carries more risk of accidents in contrast to Panoply industries whose machinery could be in good condition. Hence, the use of good machinery and safe practises also play a major role in reducing accidents which the experts don't take into account. For instance, even if the workers are very much attentive and keen, if the overall practises followed are risky, the accident rates would continue to be the same.
Secondly, they assume that the workers would sleep in the 1 hour i.e. the reduced time of their shifts which is a slightly frivalous assumption to make. The workers might be devoting the extra time for their family or do some household chores and therefore still result in sleep deprivation leading to fatigue. This therefore would not solve the purpose thereby not affecting the numbers in any way.
Thirdly, they believe that if the workers get adequate amount of sleep, the accidents would reduce which is again slightly prescient. The cause for the incidents could have been due to the labour being careless or lazy which would obviously repeat even if they are not sleep deprived. Hence, the fact that they get adequate amount of sleep would not help the cause and the percentages would not change.
Finally, the comparison that the experts make between Panoply industries and Alta Manufacturing is not completely fair since they could not be equal in terms of a variety of factors. There could be differentiating conditions in the factories for example which could be a reason for the fatigue or pose as a challenge to the health of the workers of Alta Manufacturing. The work shifts although less than an hour in Panoply, could lead to more work pressure which inturn makes their workers more prone to fatigue than those in Alta manufacturing.
Therefore, the statement that the experts claim is flawed in many ways. However, they should hold extensive research on the workers and the factory front to cover all of the flaws mentioned above which could help them come to a more informed conlusion to take the necessary steps to reduce the accidents. The evidence collected would provide more clues if the excess incidents were actually due to the fatigue caused by sleep deprivation for the workers.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 481 350
No. of Characters: 2345 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.683 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.875 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.513 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.05 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.928 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.586 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 404, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...in reducing accidents which the experts dont take into account. For instance, even i...
^^^^
Line 11, column 164, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
... workers and the factory front to cover all of the flaws mentioned above which could help ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, third, thirdly, for example, for instance, in contrast, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2405.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01041666667 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57562610376 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.458333333333 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 741.6 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.8742574872 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.25 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.55 5.70786347227 150% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
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: 0.15485533488 0.218282227539 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0507945461322 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0614185728372 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0854468278269 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0757187750886 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
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: 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.