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 Quiot 's vice president has suggested that to shorten one hour from three work shifts in order to decrease the rate of on-the-job accidents. He has considered the expert's recommendation about lack of sleep and its consequences on the rate of accidents at work, and also compared the rate of Quiot 's on-the-job accidents with another industrial planet which its work shift is one hour less. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, accuracy of the assumptions should be assessed.
First of all, the vice president has assumed that the work situation in two factories are identical. It is said that the rate of accidents in Quiot was 30% more than Panoply in the past year, however it would not mention that is the number of the workers are exactly equals? If the number of employees in Quiot are less than Panoply and the number of accident would be equal, as solving a mathematics problem, therefore the rate of accidents is higher in Quito than the other. Moreover, the prompt has not mentioned that the nature of the jobs or the equipment in two manufacturing planets are alike. It is possible that working with some tools and equipment in Quiot is more dangerous than Panoply. For instance, Quiot is a factory related to construction and building field which requires that workers deal with heavy machinery and perilous methods personally, and equipment in Panoply are automatic requiring operators. Thus, the argument would have been weakened if it could not provide information about the exact number of accident and the rate of existing danger in two planets.
Furthermore, there are many factors that lead to on-the-job accidents as if sleep deprivation. It is possible that the workers have not been taught adequate training to work with devices and are not aware of the potential risks in the manufacturing environment. Maybe, the human beings are not the main reason of accidents at all in Quiot and using owned equipment which is not safe enough anymore is the cause.This argument is flawed since it would not mention that what are the main factors of accidents at work. If any assumptions mentioned above would be proven, the accuracy of the recommendation is undermined.
At last, the prompt has suggested to shorten on hour from all three work shifts without any mentioning regarding that if the number of accidents are equal in three of them? If the workers at night shifts are struggling with lack of sleep and increase in the number of accident what is the necessity of shortening working hours for two other shifts? Furthermore, the meaning of productivity from the vice president's point of view has not been defined complete because his decision is literally despite this fact that decreasing in working hours leads to increase in cost and reducing the rate of manufactures and finally low productivity. The argument would be weakened if the amount of accidents in morning and afternoon work shifts are not as much as night work shift. Even then, the argument would have to prove that decreasing one hour in shift works which in fact leads to low productivity would be compensated through other factors such as innovation or improving the process at work.
In conclusion, the recommendation as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. if the vice president is able to give convincing information to eliminate ambiguity of the above assumptions and offer more evidence perhaps in the form of systematic research, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of his suggestion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 597 350
No. of Characters: 2944 1500
No. of Different Words: 245 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.943 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.931 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.778 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 196 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 167 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 85 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.93 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.54 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 167, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'experts'' or 'expert's'?
Suggestion: experts'; expert's
...he-job accidents. He has considered the experts recommendation about lack of sleep and ...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 412, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: This
...is not safe enough anymore is the cause.This argument is flawed since it would not m...
^^^^
Line 4, column 25, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'suggested shortening'.
Suggestion: suggested shortening
...is undermined. At last, the prompt has suggested to shorten on hour from all three work shifts with...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 131, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...nce on several unwarranted assumptions. if the vice president is able to give conv...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, therefore, thus, for instance, in conclusion, in fact, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 39.0 19.6327345309 199% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 95.0 55.5748502994 171% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2990.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 598.0 441.139720559 136% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94510247834 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84725208622 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.421404682274 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 935.1 705.55239521 133% => 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: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 57.7330631091 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.380952381 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.4761904762 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.61904761905 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => 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: 0.317150892056 0.218282227539 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100578623142 0.0743258471296 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0716783896985 0.0701772020484 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17083500504 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.078666086195 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.