] The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the
average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of
sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied,
those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher
profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it
should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night.
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.
At first glance, it might be an obvious recommendation to hire only people who need no more than 6 hour of sleep per night. After all, the study shows that Mentian advertising executives who sleep less than these hours make more profits. However, a careful examination will reveal how groundless the argument is, for it is based on unwarranted and oversimplified assumptions.
First, we should ask who conducted the study which support the recommendation. If the study is conducted by Mentian advertising itself, is the statistic of this research reliable? After all, are there many employees would say they sleep a lot when their company's researchers ask them such question? The author assumes that the study valid and use this statistic to support its recommendation would be debatable.
Second, though the study could be reliable in that the respondents gave true answers, it would be insufficient to apply the situation of executives to all employees. The requirements of different positions would be disparate. Maybe executives need sleeping less to get up early, make sound plans, and ask their subordinates to follow, but some workers, such as art editors, just need to sleep more to improve their creativity.
Additionally, the author implies that the case of Mentian advertising can apply to all business. It is, however, totally unwarranted. Even if all the employees in Mentian advertising who sleep less make more money. Why can we believe that this condition is reasonable in all other advertising companies, and even all business? If we have no more evidence to clarify that the requirement of other kinds of industries is the same, we can’t jump to the conclusion that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only the person who sleeps less than 6 hours.
To sum up, the argument is rife with unwarranted assumptions. Therefore, it is not a compelling recommendation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 310 350
No. of Characters: 1539 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.196 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.965 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.946 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 94 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 80 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.235 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.626 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 100, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'hour' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'hours'.
Suggestion: hours
...ire only people who need no more than 6 hour of sleep per night. After all, the stud...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, second, so, therefore, after all, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1596.0 2260.96107784 71% => OK
No of words: 310.0 441.139720559 70% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14838709677 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.19604776685 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.05406707562 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.538709677419 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 484.2 705.55239521 69% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.6713407666 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.8823529412 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2352941176 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.82352941176 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.189029026447 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0579628817129 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0584425320207 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0967704172675 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0640484353375 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.