The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of Butler Manufacturing.
"During the past year, workers at Butler Manufacturing reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. A recent government study reports that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. If we shorten each of our work shifts by one hour, we can improve Butler Manufacturing's safety record by ensuring that our employees are adequately rested."
The memo asserts that shortening work shifts by one hour will help the Bulter Manufacturing to improve its safety record. To justify this point, the memo compares work shifts of the company with those of the Panoply Industries, as well as cite a government study to substantiate that lacking sleep is the determining factor for on-the-job accidents. Although what the memo contends seems logical at first glance, its assumptions are actually unwarranted and unpersuasive.
As a threshold matter, the argument is predicated on incomplete and selective comparison between Bulter Manufacturing the Panoply Industries. The fact that workers at Panoply industries have one-hour-shorter work shifts makes the memo believe that employees of Panoly industries do have better rest. Is this the only reason why Panoply Industries have fewer on-the-job accidents? It is also possible that Panoply Industries have stricter safety standards than Bulter Manufacturing does, or employees of Panoply Industries do not need to do heavy work. To better assess the recommendation, the memo should rule out the possibility that Panoply Industries’ better safety records are brought by other factors.
In addition, the statement is predicated on a gratuitous assumption that employees will have better rest by having shorter work shifts. We do not know how employees of Butler Manufacturing spend their leisure time. If all the employees really allocated the extra one hour to rest, it would help employees get rid of fatigue to some degree. However, this change may not work in reality, especially considering the fact that not all employees are willing to spend time on rest. Instead, some prefer to spend time on activities such as participating in parties, and for such employees, giving them extra time for rest will not help them tackle the issue of sleep deprivation. Therefore, shortening the work shifts will probably induce employees to spend more time on recreational activities that make them exhausted rather than get good rest.
In the third place, the memo cites the government study to support the conclusion, but the government study may not be suitable for the Bulter Manufacturing case. We do not know the details of this government study. No information concerning about the sample population is given, and we do not know whether this study is applicable for the whole country or just for a small city. If the on-the-job accidents are not caused by fatigue and sleep deprivation, this government study will be totally meaningless. After all, if Bulter Manufacturing’s products are dangerous products, the number of on-the-job accidents will be much larger than that of on-the-job accidents of light industries. We do not have such information about what Bulter Manufacturing produces. Hence, the memo should provide information about the range of products Bulter Manufacturing offers.
To sum up, the memo hints that lacking sleep and feeling fatigue contribute to the large number of on-the-job accidents at Bulter Manufacturing, while shortening work shifts will effectively help to improve the company’s safety record performance. Obviously, the memo neglects other possibilities in this case. The poor safety performance may be related to the kind of products the company produces. Even if sleep deprivation really leads to job accidents, giving employees shorter work shifts may not necessarily make them have better rest, and some even become more exhausted.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 542 350
No. of Characters: 2866 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.825 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.288 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.928 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 97 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.68 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.775 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.536 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.184 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, however, if, may, really, so, therefore, third, well, while, after all, in addition, kind of, such as, as well as, to sum up, in the third place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2940.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 542.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.42435424354 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82502781895 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.02983489834 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.439114391144 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 897.3 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.0843192883 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.6 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.68 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.16 5.70786347227 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.2247465052 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0700347261551 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0544884524368 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137584267433 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0585532148996 0.0628817314937 93% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.