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.
The argument is failing to make a convincing case assuming that companies should hire only people whose needs do not exceed six hours of sleep per night. Some additional information is required to evaluate the success of such a recommendation.
Probably, the greatest flaw of the research is its narrow variance of considered professions. Only employers from advertising firms have been studied, but the recommendation is given to a wide spectrum of businesses. Consequently, many more professions should be compared because they involve different types of activity which, in its turn, can be represented in numerous fractions. There can be more duties that require physical activity than intellectual ones, eventually, the number of sleeping hours can differ dramatically in this case.
Moreover, the argument does not provide any information regarding the number of working hours in the company. Probably, it can be assumed that all companies have almost the same working time, but it is no secret that a lot of people have to stay even further to finish their work, especially this kind of situation can be observed in the vicinity of deadlines. So, the factual number of working hours should be taken into consideration.
In the end, the argument is lacking in information about executives. Adding some information about the employers' average age can clear the situation: younger people may be more energized and enthusiastic, at the same time the older employer may have greater experience in the firm. Marital status also is an important factor: obviously, the employers with little children have more duties, so their level of tiredness is higher as well as sleeping needs.
The recommendation is given based on unwarranted assumptions that make it vulnerable from different points of view. Several questions were performed above, and answering them will make the research more precise and reliable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 302 350
No. of Characters: 1568 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.169 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.192 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.889 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 116 100
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: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.439 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.615 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 429, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
..., so their level of tiredness is higher as well as sleeping needs. The recommen...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, thus, well, kind of, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1617.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 302.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.35430463576 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.1687104957 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9820542001 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.592715231788 0.468620217663 126% => OK
syllable_count: 507.6 705.55239521 72% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.8632119172 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.5 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5714285714 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.42857142857 5.70786347227 113% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0913447016632 0.218282227539 42% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0312316394027 0.0743258471296 42% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0358339091656 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.048947524408 0.128457276422 38% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0290028413314 0.0628817314937 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.17 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.