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 is stating in the memo that in order to abate the number of industrial accidents, the work shift of employees must be shorten by an hour. She is arguing that the reduction of work hours can let employees get enough sleep, which will lead to decreased frequency of accidents and productivity increase. Although the argument might seem plausible at first, the assumptions lead readers to doubt the validity of the argument.
To begin with, the author supposes that a smaller number of on-the job accidents in Panoply Industries plant is because of shorter work shifts. However, the reason of higher level of safety in Panoply Industries is not determined. Panoply Industries may use better equipment with safety alarms or they may have hired workers with higher experiences. The exact cause must be examined to validate this evidence.
Second, she assumes that decreased number of accidents will lead to productivity enhancement. No correlation between the number of accidents and productivity increase is shown in the memo. There are myriad of factors that affects the productivity of manufacturing: working speed, level of workers, and performance of machines. Thus, even though the frequency of accidents diminishes, the productivity may remain the same without the change in other factors. In a worst-case scenario, decreased amount of work time might even deteriorate productivity.
Finally, the vice president presumes that decreasing an hour of work shift can let the employees sleep enough. This presumption can become wrong under certain circumstances. First, an employee might already be having adequate amounts of sleep. In this case, another cause for the accidents should be handled. In addition, an employee might not be sleeping in their increased free time. They could take advantage of this time doing leisure sports, which might induce them more fatigue. Finally, one hour of sleep might not be enough for an employee to fully recover from their daywork.
In conclusion, to bolster the argument, the author needs to validate the aforementioned assumptions. First, the reason of Panoply Industries having less accidents has to be shown. Furthermore, the correlation between the number of accidents and work productivity needs to be specified. Finally, the employees’ activities during their lengthened repose have to be determined.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 370 350
No. of Characters: 1945 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.386 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.257 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.806 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.087 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.098 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.095 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 150, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun accidents is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...the reason of Panoply Industries having less accidents has to be shown. Furthermore,...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, so, then, thus, as to, in addition, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2010.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 370.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.43243243243 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38581623665 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93347720833 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.510810810811 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 609.3 705.55239521 86% => 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: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => 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: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 28.5641254506 57.8364921388 49% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 87.3913043478 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.0869565217 23.324526521 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.17391304348 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.151509849202 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0471563095489 0.0743258471296 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0481851467006 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0906939232825 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0295321683944 0.0628817314937 47% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.14 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.