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."
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 argument posed in the memo by the vice president of Butler Manufacturing has numerous flaws. The claim is based on unwarranted assumptions that can render the argument highly suspect. If these assumptions do not true, the argument could completely fall apart.
The argument assumes that the working conditions at Butler Manufacturing and Panoply Industries is the same. The memo writer needs to gather evidence on the similarities between the two companies that will allow him/her to derive that the working conditions are similar in nature. There can be a lot of differences between the two companies - the level of safety regulations followed, types of machinery used, protocols followed, the skill of the labour, etc. These factors are amongst the many that contribute to on-the-job accidents.
Moreover, the memo writer relates the cause of less number of on-the-job accidents in Panoply Industries to shorter work shifts. There might be a correlation between the number of hours worked by a shift and the number of accidents but correlation does not mean causation. The vice president needs to collect more information about the organisational structure and workings of the Panoply industries before jumping to the conclusion that the number of hours worked by a shift is the reason behind higher safety record.
The vice president mentions a government study on detrimental effects of fatigue and lack of sleep on on-the-job accidents. One must take any study with a grain of salt and question the validity of the study. The vice president needs to look for various other studies that point to the same result. Replicability is the key to a credible study. Even if the study is found to be credible, the memo does not give us any information on the number of hours worked in a shift. If the workers of Butler Manufacturing are working for 15 hours, reducing one hour would not make a significant dent in their fatigue levels. Without sufficient evidence, the government study fails to strengthen the argument posed in the memo.
The vice president claims that reducing an hour in the work shift would improve the safety records. The assumption that it is a single contributing factor to the safety of the workers is flawed. The vice president needs to find more information on the numerous contributing factors to the safety of the workers. A careful analysis of all the factors would be fruitful in improving safety. For example, if the machinery is flawed, reducing the number of hours would not reduce the number of on-the-job accidents.
The vice president must be cautious in changing the policy of his organisation. Unless he/she gathers more evidence and information on the above-mentioned points to ensure his/her assumptions hold true, the policy change would make no impact on the safety records of Butler Manufacturing.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2331 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.981 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.827 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.348 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.154 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.304 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.133 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 17, column 196, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...to the safety of the workers is flawed. The vice president needs to find more infor...
^^^
Line 21, column 290, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...safety records of Butler Manufacturing.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, if, look, moreover, so, then, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2403.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 465.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16774193548 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64369019777 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88720966755 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.438709677419 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 753.3 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.132828653 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.125 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.375 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.91666666667 5.70786347227 34% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
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: 0.229355928007 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0668317265188 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0624860728446 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113449416895 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0249192590946 0.0628817314937 40% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.