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 demonstrates a recent study, which shows an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Reasoning that the amount of sleep is a key factor to success and profits, the author makes an assertion that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night. However, this recommendation may seem dubious since thorough examination reveals lack of certain evidence and vital flaws in the author’s assumption.
Firstly, the sample of the cited study are 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives, from whom it is problematical to draw the later conclusion. The studied executives might be too specific to represent all the employees in advertising business, while the author unfortunately assume the opposite. Possibilities are that the mentioned executives occupy only a small portion of the whole group, and there are staff who are less indefatigable and need a proper amount of sleep. Even if all members in advertising industry share the same situation, there is no guarantee that other industries follow the pattern as well. For example, it is crucial for a pilot to have adequate rest and therefore they can stay alert during flight, thus hiring pilots with less sleep time can be a extremely perilous and irresponsible decision. To reinforce his statement, the author need to provide a much more comprehensive data.
Secondly, it is the association between the amount of sleep and the success of the executives’ firms that help the author find the apparent causality. However, the author should notice that an association in data could be misleading and it cannot determine which factor is the actual cause. Obviously, from the study adduced in the article, it is entirely possible that the success of the firms is the reason to the inadequate sleep of executives, since successful company may have more work for the employees to handle. Additionally, there can be no direct connection between sleep and success at all, suppose an international big city is the true key to success, and meanwhile residents of such cities have a habit to stay up late. In combination, this will produce an association between amount of sleep and success, but actually, these two factors have nothing to do with each other. Research specifically aimed at the relationship between sleeping time and success of firms needs to be done in order to indicate the likely causality.
Finally, is it reasonable to suggest companies should only hire person who need less sleep if all the problems discussed above are solved. Admittedly, this may help with the efficiency and therefore increase the profits, but profits should not be the only issue to consider about when running a business. In many countries, relevant laws have been made to assure certain rights of employees, namely the work time per week should be held within a certain amount. By recommending hiring based on sleeping time, it simultaneously encourages extra working beyond legitimate working hours, which strongly violates the rights of workers. One may argue that an individual can independently decide whether he would like to sleep less or more, but as long as firms have a preference upon those who are willingly to sacrifice off-work time, the welfare of those who work as law suggests is suffering.
To sum up, the author’s assertion suffers from insufficient evidence and falsely developed reasoning. To make it more persuasive, the author need to offer studies with samples more representative and convincing, and the research should be aimed closely to the relationship between sleeping time and success of company. If all the goals are fulfilled, however, I personally disapprove such suggestions cause it will bring considerable impairment to workers’ rights.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not exactly
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 626 350
No. of Characters: 3156 1500
No. of Different Words: 300 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.002 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.042 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.804 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 176 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 84 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.217 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.918 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.309 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 419, Rule ID: THERE_RE_MANY[3]
Message: Possible agreement error. Did you mean 'staffs', 'staves'?
Suggestion: staffs; staves
...rtion of the whole group, and there are staff who are less indefatigable and need a p...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 786, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ring pilots with less sleep time can be a extremely perilous and irresponsible de...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, well, while, for example, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 26.0 12.9520958084 201% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3255.0 2260.96107784 144% => OK
No of words: 626.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19968051118 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.00199880112 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9614187858 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 315.0 204.123752495 154% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.503194888179 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 1025.1 705.55239521 145% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.7954258407 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.52173913 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2173913043 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.73913043478 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.203106363472 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0633015017698 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0626840606029 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118867405592 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.067525330924 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.7 14.3799401198 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 162.0 98.500998004 164% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => 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: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.