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.
While it may be true that the probability of occurrence of on-the-job accidents is directly related to lack of sleep and fatigue, the authors argument claiming a reduction in working hours to increase productivity is rife with evident flaws in logic. It does not make a cogent case for implementing said changes.
To begin with, there is no distinction between the type of manufacturing and processing done by Quiot Manufacturing and Panoply Industries plant. The assumption underlying the number of accidents can be conclusive if both are along the same line of manufacturing. For instance, chemical producing industries are more prone to accidents due to long drawn exposure to chemicals and solvents in comparison to food product manufacturing industries. In addition, different industries require different work shift hours depending on the amount of time needed for completion of production, waste disposal and exporting the produce. To compare the frequency of accidents without considering these factors is unsound. The argument is lacking in this perspective.
Secondly, the occurrence of more on-the-job accidents in Quiot Manufacturing could be due to different reasons altogether. In addition to fatigue, most workplace accidents take place because of mishandling equipment, errors in manufacturing process, negligence and carelessness and malfunctioning of equipment. In order to gain profits, most manufacturing industries compromise on safety and proofing of the instruments used in manufacturing. Such lax actions on the behalf of the owners and managers can seriously injure labourers. The 30 percent increase in accidents in the past year could also be influenced by quality of equipment used. An improper analysis of statistics of accidents from other years as well as other factors contributing to it is required to effectively back the author’s argument.
Shortening each three-hour work shift by one hour so that each employee receives sufficient amount of sleep is an ambiguous argument. There is no guarantee that every employee will use their extra time to get more rest. For instance, most labourers working in Indian industries work odd jobs to earn an extra amount of money to support their family’s basic needs, which is not always fulfilled by the salary they earn at their primary place of work. They use any extra time at hand to run various errands as well. In turn, their productivity may remain the same or even worse, can decimate. Basing the argument on this fact is egregious.
Good health and state of mind obviously leads to increased productivity. In order to bolster the argument, the author can consider giving incentives to the employees, educate them about each equipment used, pay more attention to safety precautions and proofing the instruments to cause a significant reduction in workplace accidents.
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: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2361 1500
No. of Different Words: 242 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.306 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.037 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 119 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.227 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.582 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.265 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.265 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.042 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 135, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...lated to lack of sleep and fatigue, the authors argument claiming a reduction in workin...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 335, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...icant reduction in workplace accidents.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, while, for instance, in addition, as well as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2414.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 445.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.42471910112 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59293186426 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12402713047 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.555056179775 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 754.2 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.1288365171 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.727272727 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2272727273 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.86363636364 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.23661607733 0.218282227539 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.058160981501 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0607136174867 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113953152853 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0743578030371 0.0628817314937 118% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.