The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.
"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the memo, the author argues that to get adequate amounts of sleep can reduce the number of on-the -job accidents and increase productivity. Although the author lists a variety of reasons, if we take a close examine on these assumptions, it would be unreasonable.
To start off, the author draws his or her conclusion based on the assumption that Quiot has the similar manufacturing environment with Panoply. However, we don’t know if the condition in Panoply is better than Quiot. For example, if Panoply has a better environment and its employees got some professional trains or it has more progressive machines, then it surely has less on-the-job accidents than Quiot, the author’s argument also will be weakened for the assumption proved unwarranted.
Secondly, the author cites the experts’ saying to argue his statement. This is based on the assumption that the experts’ saying is dependable and can be applied to every industry. However, we can’t tell if the suggestions from experts are valid because there is no other information put forward. That is to say, the assumption is unfounded because the experts’ saying is general and we don’t know whether it meets the condition of Quiot.
Last but not least, the author’s statement is highly based on the assumption that if we shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour and employees will use the exceptional time to sleep and have adequate amounts of sleep. But we don’t know whether employees will not do their private things, such as play games or watch tv shows. If they still sleep the same hours, then they may be fatigue and the number of on-the-job accidents will not decrease.
Therefore, the statement is not believable according to the assumptions can be proved unwarranted.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 13 15
No. of Words: 296 350
No. of Characters: 1420 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.148 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.797 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.715 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 98 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 76 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.769 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.963 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.769 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.373 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.654 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.194 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, for example, such as, that is to say
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 27.0 55.5748502994 49% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1490.0 2260.96107784 66% => OK
No of words: 293.0 441.139720559 66% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08532423208 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.13729897018 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8553481133 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.539249146758 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 438.3 705.55239521 62% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.9995158666 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.615384615 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5384615385 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.53846153846 5.70786347227 150% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
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: 0.139167102746 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0488731272911 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0512983384452 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0674221244416 0.128457276422 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0663670138852 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.02 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 61.0 98.500998004 62% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.