• 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 resumes 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.”
The author purports that Delany Personnel Firm is better than Walsh Personnel Firm because laid off workers found jobs within six month when under Delany and nine month for people with Walsh. The author also states that Delany is more superior, evidenced by its bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. The argument delineated by the author may seem cogent and logical at first, but after perusing it thoroughly, we find it rife with holes and assumptions and the author fails to consider many aspects and provide evidence to several points purported above, and has taken an impetuous decision to come to a conclusion.
Considering the first implication made by the author that laid-off employees have benefited greatly from Delany’s services as, in the previous year those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not use Delany. To prove this statement, the author fails to provide any evidence. There is no report or evidence that laid-off workers who used Delany did actually find jobs much more quickly than those who did not. Even if there is any such report given by Delany to XYZ Company, the author mentions that XYZ pays Delany to provide the said services, it is quite possible that Delany is driven by avarice and provides fake reports of their success rate to subterfuge the company to keep paying them. Had the company kept a tab on the performance or situation of all the laid-off workers, authenticity of the report could have been checked. It is mentioned that Delany assists the employees in creating resumes and developing interviewing skills. This does not guarantee any employee’s chances of getting hired by any other company because even if they build a good resume or interviewing skill, they would still have to explain why they got laid-off in the first place. Even if we assume that people who used Delany’s services did actually end up a job before those who did not, the job title or type of the job acquired by the employees is unknown. It is possible that people who worked at a higher position ended with a job with lower position or a job completely different from their area of interest. A person working in a multi national company, for example, ended up with a job in some café, whereas, people who did not take Delany’s help, albeit, found jobs late, landed somewhere desirable.
Building upon the implication that Walsh is inferior to Delany because eight years ago only half the employees laid-off found a job within a year, the company doesn’t provide any recent data of performance of Walsh Personnel Firm. Eight years is a long time, Walsh could have grown and burgeoned drastically. The company says that eight years ago Walsh could only provide half of its employees with jobs, not mentioning the size of the firm at that time or the number of employees who took Walsh’s services. Eight years ago, Walsh could have been a fledgling, and a significant amount of time has passed since then, so success rate of the firm cannot be determined on the basis of its past performance. Even if then, it was an experienced firm, the reason it took half the employees to find a job more than a year is because of the professionalism with which the firm works. It is not said that half the employees did not find the job whatsoever, even after a year people did find jobs, so the success rate should depend on the number of employees who landed a job, not the time period in which they did. There is also a possibility that, only half the laid-off employees took their services and all of them landed up a job.
The author also compares the size and success rate of both the firms, which is clearly not credible as Delany’s performance is based on last year’s reports, while Walsh’s is based on eight-year old data. Therefore, if the assumptions presented above are true, then XYZ Company should switch to Walsh as it is cheaper and more reliable. But if Delany is actually better, then the author should present some credible reports of the success rate, performance of laid-off employees who did not opt for the services, type of job landed by the employees and characteristics of both the firms. Only after considering all these factors can any decision be made.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 737 350
No. of Characters: 3432 1500
No. of Different Words: 284 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.21 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.657 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.435 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 160 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.708 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.624 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.494 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 131, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'month' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'months'.
Suggestion: months
... laid off workers found jobs within six month when under Delany and nine month for pe...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 164, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'month' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'months'.
Suggestion: months
...in six month when under Delany and nine month for people with Walsh. The author also ...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 313, 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.
...ff and larger number of branch offices. The argument delineated by the author may s...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, so, still, then, therefore, whereas, while, for example, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 29.0 13.6137724551 213% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 93.0 55.5748502994 167% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3527.0 2260.96107784 156% => OK
No of words: 736.0 441.139720559 167% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.79211956522 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.20858137428 4.56307096286 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.529474978 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 301.0 204.123752495 147% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.408967391304 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1085.4 705.55239521 154% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 65.4175557264 57.8364921388 113% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.958333333 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.6666666667 23.324526521 131% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.66666666667 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.285606708053 0.218282227539 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0950993213306 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0792014105722 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168122860419 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0615533377141 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.09 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.74 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.