The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"A recent study rating 300 male and female 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 six hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. On the basis of this study, we recommend that businesses hire only people who need less than six hours of sleep per night."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the article that appeared in a business magazine, the author recommends the businesses to hire only the people who need less then six hours of sleep per night, based on the survey done in the sample of 300 male and female advertising executives. The assumptions on which the recommendation is based are weak, at best and do very little to strengthen the plausability of the recommendation. Lots of other informations or evidances are essential to justify the claim or recommendation made on the article. I would like to point out some of them.
Starting with, the author presents the sample size of 300 male and female advertising agents without properly mentioning about the exact composition of the sample. The number of male and female could be skewed which might greatly influence the result of the survey. Furthermore, the author has neglected the most important aspect of health. Maybe, most of the executives that were involved in the survey pushed themselves hard to gain the short-term goal by compromising their health in lack of sufficient sleep. If the author would mention that those executives are in sound health and show no sign of affect of lack of sleep, then that would make the claim more strong.
Furthermore, there is no mention of the duty hours or the shifts in which those advertising executives worked. Maybe, most of them had the luxury of taking a power nap in the day time to compensate their lack of sleep in night hours so that they could rip off the advantage of night shift. Also, they may be working more than the recommended working hours to yield better results. This may not be applicable for all other businesses. Thus, the evidance and facts related to the duty hours and shifts is essential to strengthen the recommendation made by the author.
Another discernable doubt in the finding of the survey is the credibility of the responses of the executives involved in the survey. How accurate are those data acquired in actual? Maybe the executives were naturally the type who slept less during night, often called as night-owls. For instance, if someone asks me how many hours I sleep, my answer would be 5-6 hours, irrespective of the productivity that I can achieve during day time. I could be watching movies or hanging out with my friends during my extra night hours instead of sleeping. So, this survey would not really make sense unless the exact nature and sleeping habit of the executives being surveyed is properly noted and analysed.
Thus, it would be very weak recommendation if it is based on only the given assumptions stated in the article. However, the claim or recommendation would be greatly strengthened if the above mentioned evidences are made available.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 461 350
No. of Characters: 2213 1500
No. of Different Words: 214 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.634 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.8 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.734 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.955 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.626 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.296 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 129, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[2]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...s to hire only the people who need less then six hours of sleep per night, based on ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, however, if, may, really, so, then, thus, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2263.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 461.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90889370933 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63367139033 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79995912979 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490238611714 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 703.8 705.55239521 100% => 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: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.2888084536 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.863636364 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9545454545 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.31818181818 5.70786347227 58% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => 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: 0.210128168993 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0560055957716 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.059826532491 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112517111784 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0578960471054 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.64 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.