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.
According to the author of the memo, the company should not use Walsh Personnel FIrm in place of Delany. The argument may seem plausible at first glance. However, in order to evaluste the soundness of the argument, we need more information regarding the effectivity of Delany, the comparison between Delany and Walsh, and whether Delany is superior.
To begin with, more direct evidence with regard to whether Delany's service is effective is required so as to verify the argument. In accordance with the author, last year those who used Delany found jobs more quickly than those who did not. But it is possible that those who used Delany are more competent than those who don't. If this is the case, even if they find job on their own, they can get a rewarding and promising job more quickly than others. Consequently, without more information about the laid-off employees to justify the effectiveness of Delany, the argument is untenable.
In addition, we also need to know more about the comparison between Delany and Walsh. The fact that only half of the workers found jobs within a year eight years ago doesn't necessarily imply that Walsh is less likely to help people find job now. Maybe in the past, the local economy is bad, and thus it is difficult for people to locate a position. Or perhaps, Walsh has more experience so it is proficient in such tasks now. If any of the aforementioned condition is the case, it is unsafe to conclude that the Walsh is not as good as Delany. Obviously, we need more evidence to rule out these possibilities before we could accept the argument.
Finally, another crucial piece evidence we need is about whether Delany is actually superior. The author claims that Delany owns bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. But this does not necessarily means Delany is superior. It is possbile that the staff in Delany is tyro and they are not good at helping people find a good job quickly. If so, using Delany may not be a good choice since it is less expensive to use Walsh. Hence, we should collect more evidence apropos of the efficiency of Delany and Walsh in order to assess the argument.<br>
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 377 350
No. of Characters: 1725 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.406 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.576 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.448 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 117 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 76 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.842 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.782 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.356 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.516 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.165 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 101, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...elanys service is effective is required so as to verify the argument. In accordance with...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 322, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...elany are more competent than those who dont. If this is the case, even if they find...
^^^^
Line 3, column 532, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... about the laid-off employees to justify the effectiveness of Delany, the argumen...
^^
Line 5, column 167, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ound jobs within a year eight years ago doesnt necessarily imply that Walsh is less li...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 210, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'mean'
Suggestion: mean
... offices. But this does not necessarily means Delany is superior. It is possbile that...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, regarding, so, thus, as to, in addition, to begin with, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1778.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 374.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.75401069519 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3976220399 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54325164193 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.489304812834 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 576.9 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 32.9734362783 57.8364921388 57% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.9 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.3 5.70786347227 128% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.112964604678 0.218282227539 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0386747971064 0.0743258471296 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.035663160495 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0735533809276 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.037653457805 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.3 14.3799401198 72% => 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: 10.27 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.57 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
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.