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 arguer claimed that, the Panoply Industries plant has lesser on-the-job accidents due to their shorter work shifts, so the work shifts of Quiot Manufacturing should decrease as well. There are some assumptions in this argument that need to be looked more closely into.
First, the arguer implied that shorter work shifts can increase rest time and prevent sleep deprivation. However, the arguer seemed to assume that by reducing the work shifts, the workers would sleep longer instead of having fun. If the assumption is wrong, that is, workers choose to have fun during the extra free time, their sleep time would not increase, so the problem of sleep deprivation and fatigue remains.
The number of on-the-job accidents at Panoply Industries plant are cited to show that their plant is safer. The arguer assume that lower on-the-job accidents indicates safer plants. The assumption can be problematic. For example, maybe the Panoply Industries plant has much lesser workers, so the number of accidents is unsurprisingly lower. Also, it may be the case that Panoply Industries plant do not honestly report accidents to prevent legal actions taken against the firm. The arguer's assumption that lesser on-the-job accidents indicates safer plants need to be further explained; otherwise, the arguments would be based on wrong statistics and therefore is not convincing.
Moreover, the arguer suggested that the lower on-the-job accidents is caused by the shorter work shifts. Correlations do not imply causations. While it may be true that the shorter work shifts give rise to lower on-the-job accidents, there are also other plausible explanation. For example, maybe they have more comprehensive safety instructions, the workers are better trained, or their manufacturing processes are not as dangerous as Quiot Manufacturing's. The shorter workshift may only be one of the factor or even not a factor at all. The argument relies on the assumption that shorter work shifts are the main reason or the only factor that lead to lower on-the-job accidents, and if the assumption is erronous, the argument breaks down.
Finally, the arguer assume that the experiences at Panoply Industries plant can be transferred to Quiot Manufacturing. There can be many reason making the it not trasferrable. The products they produce, the scales of the factories, the funding of the firms can all influences the feasibility to adopt shorter work shifts. The arguer's assumption that Quiot Manufacturing can adopt shorter work shifts and can be as effective needs more evidence to be substantiated.
To make the argument more convincing, the arguer should clarify the claims to the assumptions mentioned above.
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: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2219 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.209 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.778 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.124 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.354 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 119, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'assumes'.
Suggestion: assumes
...w that their plant is safer. The arguer assume that lower on-the-job accidents indicat...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 182, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...e-job accidents indicates safer plants. The assumption can be problematic. For exam...
^^^
Line 3, column 483, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
...gal actions taken against the firm. The arguers assumption that lesser on-the-job accid...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 234, Rule ID: ALSO_OTHER[1]
Message: Use simply 'there are other' or 'there are also'
Suggestion: there are other; there are also
...ive rise to lower on-the-job accidents, there are also other plausible explanation. For example, may...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 152, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'it'?
Suggestion: the; it
...turing. There can be many reason making the it not trasferrable. The products they pro...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 327, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
...ility to adopt shorter work shifts. The arguers assumption that Quiot Manufacturing can...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, honestly, however, if, look, may, moreover, so, therefore, well, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2273.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.33568075117 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86613566125 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.43896713615 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 677.7 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 21.0 8.76447105788 240% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.2756590447 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.318181818 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3636363636 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.77272727273 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.236836936383 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0799286369522 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0686814835388 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.134115370434 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.075835677843 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.