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.
The author assumes that because the higher accident rate in Quiot Manufacturing results from higher work shifts, reducing the work shifts can decrease the work accident rate in Quiot Manufacturing; However, some problematic inferences make the assumption dubious.
To begin with, the author relies on data to assume that the accidents in Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more than the accidents in Panoply Industries; However, this data does not mention the work types of Quiot Manufacturing and Panoply Industries. Specifically, Quiot Manufacturing might be a labor-intensive industry, while Panoply Industries might be a semi-automation. Then, it is reasonable that Quiot Manufacturing’s accident rate is higher than Panoply Industries; And these two companies cannot be compared. Thus, the assumption from data is valueless, since the types of the two companies might be different.
Another dubious assumption that the author relied on is that the causal relationship between the shorter work shifts and the lower accident rate in Panoply Industries. It’s highly possible that other factors contributed to the lower accident rate in Panoply Industries. For instance, the lower accident rate in Panoply Industries might have resulted from high-quality management in Panoply Industries. It is also likely that skillful workers in Panoply Industries caused lower accident rate in Panoply Industries. Lacking evidence that links the shorter work shifts and the lower accident rate, it is presumptuous to assume that the lower accident rate were responsible for the shorter work shifts.
Further, the editor’s recommendation depends on the assumption that no factors other than the higher work shifts will cause inadequate amounts of sleep; However, a myriad of other factors, including insomnia and bad living habit, might be the cause of the inadequate amounts of sleep. To be specific, if the workers have insomnia and bad living habit, the shorter work shifts are useless because it is not the main problems of accidents. Without ruling out these and other possible causes, the editor cannot justifiably conclude that only by shorting the work shifts can getting adequate amounts of sleep.
To sum up, the author’s assumption that since workers are lacking adequate amounts of sleep, reducing work shifts will result in lower accidents is problematic. If the author offers some pieces of cogent evidence: what types of company Panoply Industries and Quiot Manufacturing is, another evidence that links the shorter work shifts and the lower accident rate, and considering other factors, including insomnia and bad living habit, this assumption will be more reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 409 350
No. of Characters: 2215 1500
No. of Different Words: 151 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.497 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.416 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.824 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.267 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.649 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.45 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.688 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.213 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, so, then, thus, while, for instance, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2285.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 409.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.58679706601 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49708221141 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94177450169 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.38630806846 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 699.3 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.7191127039 57.8364921388 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.333333333 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2666666667 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.66666666667 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.278265520276 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.117019779983 0.0743258471296 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0769882569239 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.175403804136 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0724652056748 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.5 14.3799401198 129% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.44 12.5979740519 123% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.