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 this argument, the author concludes that companies should only hire people who just need to sleep for less than six hours. To bolster the argument, the author points out that a recent study shows there is a connection between sleeping hours and being a success. The author also falsely assumes that executives who sleep less than six hours would earn more money and growth rapidly. The author’s argument is problematic and untenable.
The first major problem is that the author states the assumption that people’s hours of sleeping have connected to their successes in the company. The study just asked 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives, but it could not be convincible to state that it can represent the whole population of advertising industry. There are some employees who could become executives since they maintain six hours or more sleeping time, which is a healthy lifestyle for people to accumulate enough energy to do better work. Even though all employees in the advertising industry are facing the same situation, it might not trustworthy to say that all other industries are in the same situation as well. Some other occupations such as civil servants might have enough time to sleep every day. Therefore, the assumption derived from the study is tenuous since its sample size does not provide credible evidence to conclude that there’s a connection between success and hours of sleep.
Another problem is that the author speciously inserts the cause-and-effect situation, he claims that executives who sleep less than six hours would have higher profit and growth rapidly in the industry, so the company should hire people who sleep less than six hours. There is no direct causal relationships between hours of sleeping and earn more money. Sometimes, some executives who are not participating in the core program in a company might have enough time to sleep more than six hours per day, yet it’s disputable to conclude that they do not gain more money. Even if it is true that executives who earn more money would sleep less, it would not be decisive to say that a business should only employ people who sleep less. Other business such as building workers, if they do not have enough sleep, they would not maintain enough energy to build buildings or they could even in danger if they do not have good rests. Thus, the author’s assumption about the causality of sleeping time and success in business is not credible, it needs more evidence to support the argument.
In conclusion, the assumption made by the author is unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it, the author must demonstrate that the study conducted with a large sample size; the author must also provide enough evidence to show the causal relationship between hours of sleeping and success in companies.
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: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2298 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.91 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.537 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.345 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.381 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ument is problematic and untenable. The first major problem is that the author ...
^^^
Line 3, column 153, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...cted to their successes in the company. The study just asked 300 male and female Me...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, so, then, therefore, thus, well, in conclusion, such as, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2373.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07051282051 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68353185779 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433760683761 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 722.7 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.934781759 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.833333333 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.94444444444 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => 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: 0.173824723281 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0661361302074 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0451756729298 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114541292213 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0273516343752 0.0628817314937 43% => 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: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.