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."
The argument claims that, reducing work shifts will result in decline of on-the-job accidents. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The vice president of Quiot Manufacturing have come to this conclusion based on the premise that less number of accidents in Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are shorter than their industry. This conclusion relies on assumptions, for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.
First of all, the argument readily assumes that Quiot Manufacturing plant would get same result as the Panoply Industries. However, this might not be the case as this statement is a stretch and not substantiated in anyways. Perhaps the workers at Panoply Industries may be young and healthy persons where as the workers in Quiot Manufacturing Plant are old and has health issues. Further, People at Panoply could be careful and attentive where as the persons at this industry may be less attentive. If either of these has merit, then the conclusion drawn from the original argument is significantly weakened.
Second, the argument claims that sleep deprivation causes on-the-job accidents. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between number of hours of sleep and number of accidents at the number of accidents at the workplace. For instance, the worker who sleeps more than 8 hours may be lazy and less attentive than the person who slept only 6 hours. If the author had provided the evidence that how sleep deprivation causes job accidents, then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the argument assumes that adequate amount of sleep increases productivity of an industry. However, by careful scrutiny of evidence reveals that it provides less credible support for author's conclusion in several respects, and raises several skeptical questions. For example, What are the reasons for productivity? How is sleep related to efficiency? with out convincing answers to this questions, the reader is left with the impression that claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. To bolster it further, the author must provide concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a detailed analysis of sleep trends in a successful workplace. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2223 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.099 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.784 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.987 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.507 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.05 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 300, Rule ID: WHERE_AS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'whereas'?
Suggestion: whereas
...stries may be young and healthy persons where as the workers in Quiot Manufacturing Pla...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 323, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... healthy persons where as the workers in Quiot Manufacturing Plant are old and ha...
^^
Line 4, column 440, Rule ID: WHERE_AS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'whereas'?
Suggestion: whereas
... Panoply could be careful and attentive where as the persons at this industry may be les...
^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 360, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: With
...ty? How is sleep related to efficiency? with out convincing answers to this question...
^^^^
Line 8, column 360, Rule ID: WITH_OUT[1]
Message: This word is usually written together. Did you mean 'without'?
Suggestion: without
...ty? How is sleep related to efficiency? with out convincing answers to this questions, t...
^^^^^^^^
Line 8, column 391, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...iciency? with out convincing answers to this questions, the reader is left with the ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
anyway, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, for example, for instance, in summary, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2286.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24311926606 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88790523274 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495412844037 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 696.6 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.8531314698 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.3913043478 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9565217391 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.52173913043 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.213555205132 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.054936342195 0.0743258471296 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0874247996508 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.111980030859 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0840171130935 0.0628817314937 134% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.11 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.