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 Vice president of Quiot Manufacturing believes that exhaustion of workers is the reason for the prevalence of on-site accidents in his company. In his analysis, he juxtaposes Quiot Manufacturing with a nearby company, Panoply Industries plant and concludes that if the work hours are reduced by an hour just like in Panoply Industries plant, the company will experience lesser accidents. However, the analysis of the Vice President is mission some key considerations. To properly evaluate his argument we need him to provide evidence on three assumptions he made.
The Vice President directly equates Quoit Manufacturing to Panoply Industries Plant. There is no mention in his argument that these companies do the same jobs. If these companies are not manufacturing the same products and hence, working with the same equipment, is it not possible that the equipment at Panoply Industries plant are less complicated to operate than those at Quoit Manufacturing? Or maybe the activities involved in the processes at Quoit Manufacturing is just more dangerous than those at Panoply Industries plant. Therefore, the Vice President needs to determine if Panoply Industries plant and Quiot Manufacturing are involved in the production of the same products and if so, are they undergoing the same processes? If they are not, then, the Vice President’s argument will be considerably flawed.
In addition, the Vice President does not consider the skill set of the employees in the two establishments. Skilled workers are less likely to be involved in work place accidents as they are adept in the use of different machineries pertaining to the job, unlike unskilled workers who might not be as adept. Also, the author does not consider the experience levels of the workers in the two companies. A more experienced worker is more likely to be able to avoid some situations that would lead to accidents than a less experienced worker. The Vice President needs to consider this factor and determine the effect it has on his argument. If there is a large disparity in the quality of workers in the two companies, then the argument of the Vice President will be seriously affected.
Furthermore, the Vice President does not make any statement to the number of work shifts that Panoply Industries Plant has and the mechanism in which they operate. It is possible that Panoply Industries Plant has two work shifts per day and because of that, the workers are more productive and error free than those at Quoit Manufacturing which has three work shifts. Therefore, reducing the three work shift hours by an hour might not be effective enough to replicate the on-site job accident numbers at Panoply Industries Plant. Also, the writer does not consider how the workers are scheduled at the two companies. It is possible that in Panoply Industries Plant, a worker is obligated to work one shift per day, whereas in Quoit Manufacturing, a worker has to work in all the three shifts. This might be the reason for fatigue which can lead to accidents. The Vice President needs to consider this, if the possibility stands true, then his argument is flawed.
The argument as it stands is considerably faulty as it is based on some assumptions that have not been backed with evidence. Therefore, for this situation to be properly evaluated the Vice President needs to undergo a thorough comparative analysis between Panoply Industries Plant and Quoit Manufacturing.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 25 15
No. of Words: 564 350
No. of Characters: 2827 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.873 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.012 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.867 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 165 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 90 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.56 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.333 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.56 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, whereas, as to, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2888.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 564.0 441.139720559 128% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12056737589 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87326216964 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94874521366 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.379432624113 0.468620217663 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 918.0 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.5842766742 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.52 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.56 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.68 5.70786347227 64% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.332973686172 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105873007997 0.0743258471296 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0885580691919 0.0701772020484 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.197293450929 0.128457276422 154% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0913869599269 0.0628817314937 145% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.7 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.