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.
In the given memo, the vice president of Quiot Manufacturing discusses about the on-the-job accidents happening in his industry and comparing it with that of the Panoply industries plant, concludes that reducing the number of working hours will result in the decline in these accidents. However, this assertion relies on doubtful assumptions and so it is unconvincing. These assumptions need to be substantiated before implementing his suggested solution.
The vice president suggests that his company had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply industries plant. There can be many reasons for this. It can be possible that the machines used by Quiot Manufacturing are too old and Panoply industries might be using newer machines or machines based on latest technology. Moreover, it is also possible that the amount of production is higher in Quiot Manufacturing and the machines are therefore not capable of taking the load.
One of the other reasons of the increse in on-the-job accidents can be the skills of the workers. If the workers are not familiar with the machines and the process, and are capable of operating them properly, the accidents can happen. Also, the workers can also be lazy and careless about their work which may result in accidents. On the other hand, the workers at Panoply industries can be more skilled and more dedicated about their work leading them to be more careful about accidents.
The vice president's suggestion of reducing the number of working hours is based on the fact that the other industry workers have one hour shorter shifts. However, there is no relation between the number of working hours and the on-the-job accidents happening. The assumption that decreasing the number of working hours will increase the productivity is not evident enough to conclude that this will also result in the decrease in the number of on-the-job accidents. In addition, the abatement in the work shift hours may result in decline in production and therefore leading to a huge loss to the company.
The work hour shifts cannot be considered the main reason of the difference in the number of on-the-job accidents. Other factors such as the quality of machineries and the skills of the workers should be assessed before coming to the conclusion of decreasing the number of hours in work shifts. Therefore, the suggestion of shortening the each of three work shifts by one hour should be re-evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 401 350
No. of Characters: 2016 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.475 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.027 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.755 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.799 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.592 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, in addition, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2060.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 401.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.13715710723 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.47492842339 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82189824093 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.406483790524 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 634.5 705.55239521 90% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.0804441961 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.444444444 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2777777778 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.88888888889 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.299865817005 0.218282227539 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101717712018 0.0743258471296 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106243200371 0.0701772020484 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173269079114 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0668352764149 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.