The following appeared in a memo at XYZ company.
"When XYZ lays off employees, it pays Delany Personnel Firm to offer those employees assistance in creating résumés and developing interviewing skills, if they so desire. Laid-off employees have benefited greatly from Delany's services: last year those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not. Recently, it has been proposed that we use the less expensive Walsh Personnel Firm in place of Delany. This would be a mistake because eight years ago, when XYZ was using Walsh, only half of the workers we laid off at that time found jobs within a year. Moreover, Delany is clearly superior, as evidenced by its bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. After all, last year Delany's clients took an average of six months to find jobs, whereas Walsh's clients took nine."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The given argument says that proposing Walsh Personnel Firm (despite being less expensive) in place of Delany Personnel Firm will be a mistake, based on some blanket assertions: Last year's datum shows that Delany's clients get jobs quicker than do Walsh's clients and current Walsh Personnel Firm remains same as it was 8 years ago. Stated in this way, the argument fails to take several pivotal factors into consideration for which no transparent evidence is provided; therefore, the argument remains fallacious and open for debate. However, in order to make it compelling, evidence for the following three questions must be presented.
First of all, is only one year of data enough to judge that Delany Personnel Firm is better than Walsh Personnel Firm? It has appeared in the memo that last year, the former's clients achieve job offers quickly (within an average of six months). But, what about years before the last year? Or, will this success continue for the following years? Enough information is not provided. It is not tenable, based on only one year's datum, that proposing the latter firm would be a mistake.
Secondly, Did all the clients get jobs within six months? How many trainees did take training from Delany Personnel Firm last year? No numerical evidence of this question is delineated. Perhaps, there were only four trainees (say, A, B, C, and D) and the time they took to find jobs is 1, 1, 10, and 12 months, respectively. In this case, the average is six months; however, is it good data to declare the Delany Personal Farm better?
Furthermore, even if we are convinced that Delany Personnel Firm is better than the other one, but why does the XYZ company need to change its plan to a less expensive firm? Are they encountering money problems? Or, is the former located far away from the XYZ, resulting in more expensive? No clear evidence is presented.
Finally, another assumption is that the present Walsh Personnel Firm is comparable with what it was eight years ago. Perhaps, the current situation is totally different from the past. Maybe, they improved much more than it was eight years ago. In addition, the clients who took training eight years ago were not competent enough; as a result, it took them time to find jobs. To make this assumption more persuasive, the author must demonstrate more evidence.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is to answer the questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), it will be possible to fully assess and bolster the viability of the proposed recommendation that it would be a mistake to propose Walsh Personnel Firm in place of Delany Personnel Firm.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2233 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.761 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.538 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.76 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.996 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.44 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.268 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.495 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.049 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 118, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s expensive in place of Delany Personnel Firm will be a mistake, based on some bl...
^^
Line 1, column 183, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... based on some blanket assertions: Last years data shows that Delanys clients get job...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 120, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...rm is better than Walsh Personnel Firm? it has appeared in the memo that last year...
^^
Line 3, column 288, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Or
... what about years before the last year? or, will this success continue for the fol...
^^
Line 3, column 413, Rule ID: ONE_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use the numeral 'one' with plural words. Did you mean 'one year', 'a year', or simply 'years'?
Suggestion: one year; a year; years
...vided. It is not tenable, based on only one years of data, that proposing the latter firm...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 133, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: No
...g from Delany Personnel Firm last year? no numerical evidence of this question is ...
^^
Line 7, column 213, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Or
...? Are they encountering money problems? or, is the former located far away from th...
^^
Line 11, column 430, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...sonnel Firm in place of Delany Personnel Firm.
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, in addition, in conclusion, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2314.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 470.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92340425532 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65612321451 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60740665959 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.506382978723 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 708.3 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 74.7742629519 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.56 119.503703932 77% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.52 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.115118658586 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0321014856196 0.0743258471296 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0359379127223 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0698274082655 0.128457276422 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0316810818285 0.0628817314937 50% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.1 14.3799401198 77% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.