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.
In the article, the author states that according to a survey conducted, it was observed that the executives who reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep had profit margins and faster growth compared to those executives who needed more than 6 hours of sleep. The article, according to the results of this survey suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only those people who need less than 6 hours of sleep. However, to me, this argument seems baseless since it is based on a lot of assumptions and do not give enough convincing information.
Firstly, the basis of the survey conducted is not mentioned in the article. It is entirely possible that those few advertising firms, that were a part of this survey showed this pattern where the executives needed less than 6 hours of sleep and even then the firms were highly profitable and successful. It is possible that in those successful advertising firms, which were not a part of this survey, most executives reported needing more than 6 hours of sleep. And without proper information, it is not wise to blindly assume that firms where employees need less than 6 hours of sleep are more successful.
Secondly, the article also does not give the information about how many year’s results of these advertising firms were taken into consideration. It is possible that the firms which showed these results were profitable only in the years that were considered in the survey. It may be that these firms suffered a loss in their business in the earlier years. So, it is not safe again to consider the results of this survey unless more information about these firms’ earlier years’ results are not provided.
Thirdly, it is possible that the advertising firms under study had a bigger reach in the market already, and they were successful. So, it is also not a good decision to assume the results of this survey unless more information, about the before and after market reach of these firms are provided. It is possible that those advertising firms which has a small reach in the market and where the employees need less than 6 hours of sleep were not that successful.
As generally seen in various scientific studies, those people who have less sleep are mostly not able to concentrate properly in their work, which directly links them to less output and low success rate, and to low profits or loss. So, it is not wise to base any decision according to the results of the survey mentioned in the article, until more convincing information and further facts are not provided. It may be possible that if some other business hires employees who need less than 6 hours of sleep only, the firm or the business organization might not do well and might not have high success rate as would have been expected. Instead, firms must hire employees with good skills and try to maintain a healthy work atmosphere, to have good overall success.
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 504 350
No. of Characters: 2351 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.738 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.665 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.453 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.743 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.414 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.612 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 465, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... needing more than 6 hours of sleep. And without proper information, it is not wi...
^^
Line 4, column 109, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... bigger reach in the market already, and they were successful. So, it is also not...
^^
Line 5, column 208, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...to less output and low success rate, and to low profits or loss. So, it is not wi...
^^
Line 5, column 764, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...mosphere, to have good overall success.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 26.0 13.6137724551 191% => OK
Pronoun: 51.0 28.8173652695 177% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2421.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 504.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.80357142857 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73813722054 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58790938304 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.384920634921 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 741.6 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 16.0 4.96107784431 323% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 48.4869843806 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.5 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.0 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.88888888889 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.116163179648 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0459830778055 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0393696458578 0.0701772020484 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.075091242459 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0286790531609 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: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 48.3550499002 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.86 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.44 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.