The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a manufacturing company.
"During the past year, workers at our newly opened factory reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries. Panoply produces products very similar to those produced at our factory, but its work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. Panoply's superior safety record can therefore be attributed to its shorter work shifts, which allow its employees to get adequate amounts of rest."
In this memo, the vice president of a manufacturing company claims that the company have to shorten its work shifts to reduce occurrence of on-the-job accidents. To support her argument, she says that nearby manufacturing company, Panoply Industries(PI)'s number of on-the-job accidents is 30% lower than her company and its work shifts are one hour shorter than her company. And she cites some experts' opinions that indicate one of the main factors of accidents in workplace is fatigue and sleep deprivation in many companies. And she assumes that safety record of PI is because of shorter work shifts and this shorter work shift of PI can give adequate amounts of rest. Careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical problems.
To begin with, based on the opinion of experts which say that fatigue and sleep deprivation are significant reason for accidents, the author hastily assumes that the on-the-job accidents in her company could also result from same reason. However, those accidents in her company could not come from sleep deprivation and fatigue. Common sense tells us that there are many factors which cause accidents in workplaces. For example, carelessness of workers can be a cause of accidents in workplaces or deficiency in safety facility can be another reason. Until she cannot explain why she thinks the main reason of on-the-job accidents come from fatigue and sleep deprivation, we cannot be convinced by this argument.
Secondly, even if we admit the accidents mainly occur from sleep deprivation and fatigue in her company, based on the fact that the PI has shorter work shifts and lower occurrence of on-the-job accidents, she wrongly presumes that the reason for lower occurrence of job accidents in PI is because of shorter work shifts. However, it could not be a main factor. For example, if PI educates more often and more thoroughly their employees about safety than her company and they observes it well, it is natural that PI reports 30% lower job accidents. If this is true, this argument is groundless.
Finally, even if we admit the other problems are true, there is another problem. Based on the fact that two companies produce similar kinds of products, she hastily presumes that all work condition of the two companies are similar and action in work shits can be remedy for the problem of her company. However, the shorter work shifts cannot be right solution for that problem. For example, even if two companies produces similar kinds of product, the production process could be different or the number of workers or employees' recognition of safety could be different. If she cannot rule out this problem, this argument is not cogent.
To summarize, this argument is still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, the vice president of this manufacturing company has to know exact reason for lower occurrence of job accidents in PI and has to give additional information about main reason of on-the-job accidents in her company. To evaluate better, we should be given explanation about why she thinks the conditions of two companies, except kinds of materials which two companies produce, are similar, in that, why she thinks shortening work shifts would also be effective to reduce job occurrence in her company.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 541 350
No. of Characters: 2691 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.823 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.974 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.612 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 206 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 162 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.591 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.11 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.234 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 476, Rule ID: NON3PRS_VERB[2]
Message: The pronoun 'they' must be used with a non-third-person form of a verb: 'observe'
Suggestion: observe
... about safety than her company and they observes it well, it is natural that PI reports ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 314, 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.
...of on-the-job accidents in her company. To evaluate better, we should be given exp...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, well, as to, for example, in fact, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 60.0 28.8173652695 208% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2759.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 541.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09981515712 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82280071112 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69432582 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.382624768946 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 862.2 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 79.8232034039 57.8364921388 138% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.409090909 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5909090909 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.77272727273 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => 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 : 17.0 6.88822355289 247% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.132444058681 0.218282227539 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0429491185881 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0481049573803 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0876671849682 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0299747061001 0.0628817314937 48% => 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: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.