The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the directors of a company that manufactures parts for heavy machinery:
“The falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn, are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology, and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should, therefore, move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department.”
The report concludes that the present purchase manager should be transferred to the sales department and a scientist from with in the company’s research division should be brought in as new manager of the purchasing department. However, the conclusion relies on assumptions for which the report does not supply clear evidence.
The report mentions that the company’s failing to generate revenue is due to delay in manufacturing products. If for example, the prevalent problem is due to heavy traffic on roads or may be the mode of transportation is not appropriate could be the reason for delay in manufacturing. In addition, the report hold manager responsible for poor planning in purchasing materials and not enough knowledge in purchasing materials. However, the report does not provide any specific evidence about past mistakes in regards to purchasing materials by the manager or any kind of yearly review against the manager about his work and knowledge. Also, if the manager is following to the rules and guidelines of the company policy while purchasing materials and the other party (the buyers) is delaying in accepting the product of the company.
The report also mentions that purchase manager should be moved to the sales department and a scientist from the research department should be appointed as a new purchase manager. However, if the problem is not solved even after changing the manager and the real problem was found in the company’s training criteria, which was not provided appropriately to its employees. Although the new manager might be good at judging metals but delay’s manufacturing products is also another problem, which is not the department of scientists.
In conclusion, to strengthen the argument report must provide several pieces of evidence to support its argument. First of all, the report mentions that delays in manufacturing is because of poor planning by the manager could be strengthened by providing relevant evidence about the manager work or company’s sales figures then it would be a valid reason to replace the manager. Secondly, the company should rather than replacing manager if it changes it policy on selling and manufacturing would be helpful to overcome losses. Finally, if the report says it will hire a manager who has past experience in purchasing material would be more appropriate in order to increase the company revenue. In its current state, the argument in the report relies too heavily on unsupported assumptions to be convincing.
flaws:
Not exactly right on the point.
suggested:
argument 1: the argument failed to address the casual relationship between falling revenues and delays in manufacturing. The fact that the falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in manufacturing does not mean one causes another. It may be other reasons that cause the company to experience the falling revenues. For example, the quality of products does not satisfy its customers, and as a result, many previous clients are turning to its competitors。
argument 2: If the scientist is skilled in the properties of metals but poor at planning, the delays in manufacturing may be worse.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 401 350
No. of Characters: 2065 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.475 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.15 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.847 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.733 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.103 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.392 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.567 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5