The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company.
"Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee—a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. Clearly, Acme would benefit greatly by requiring all of our employees to take the Easy Read course."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author of the passage tries to make Acme Publishing Company more successful and productive. He or she thinks that the best way of it is to accomplish the Fast Reading courses for all employees. Perhaps, the author of the text is right and it will bring a lot of profits, however, the passage has some weak points in the argumentation. Hence, in order to be sure about the decision, these shaky moments should be supported be additional evidence. Otherwise, Acme Publishing Company ventures to have considerable loss, because of ineffective spending.
First of all, the most obvious question - is so necessary to read fast? Probably, there is no any need to be a fast reader at all. Especially, considering the fact that this company is a publisher, it is quite reasonable to suppose that workers must read extremely attentive in order to notice all possible mistakes in a text. However, at the same time, fast reading allows to understand fast, but not to pay attention to mistakes in a text. Hence, the author of the passage should provide evidence that fast reading skill will advantageous in this field of work. Otherwise, it may be waste of company's resources.
The second thing that should be supported is given argumentation. The author states that one graduate can read 500 pages report in two hours. There is no doubt that is the great result, but the text does not have any information about the rest of graduates? Probably, a group of fast readers students consists of 10 people, where only one or two may develop fast reading skill considerably, but the rest cannot perform such results. Hence, the precise portfolio of this course should be provided. Moreover, the text has the mention about the one more graduate. It states that he or she promoted to vice president while the short period of time. However, it is not clearly stated that such promotion was result of the fast reading skill. Consequently, these two points should be supported by additional evidence. More accurate data will be suitable in this situation.
Even if the first two points are true, the author's conclusion is quite controversial. The author states that all workers should accomplish this course. However, this is the strange proposal, because any company has different workers with different aims and tasks. For example, the main task of accountants is to calculate, but not to read, especially fast. Consequently, the author should provide evidence that all workers should accomplish the course.
To sum up, the passage may contain some reasonable proposal, however, it should be supported by additional evidence, because the argumentation of the text has weak points. Otherwise, the company risks having ineffective spending.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: Hence, the author of the passage should provide evidence that fast reading skill will advantageous in this field of work.
Description: A modal auxillary is not usually followed by an adjective
Suggestion: Refer to will and advantageous
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argument 1 -- can be put on argument three.
argument 2 -- OK, but can make it simpler: two samples are not big enough
argument 3 -- OK
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You lost:
Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee—a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. //suppose the company has 2000 people, 2000 X $500 is still a big money. and more info wanted for the seminar and newsletter.
the structure:
argument 1 -- One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday.
argument 2 -- Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee—a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter.
argument 3 -- Clearly, Acme would benefit greatly by requiring all of our employees to take the Easy Read course.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 450 350
No. of Characters: 2204 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.606 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.898 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 162 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.071 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.414 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.679 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.285 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.451 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.046 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The author of the passage tries to make ...
^^^
Line 3, column 93, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...essary to read fast? Probably, there is no any need to be a fast reader at all. Es...
^^
Line 3, column 376, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'understanding'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'allow' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: understanding
..., at the same time, fast reading allows to understand fast, but not to pay attention to mista...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 632, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...moted to vice president while the short period of time. However, it is not clearly stated that...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 45, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...n if the first two points are true, the authors conclusion is quite controversial. The ...
^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'consequently', 'first', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'second', 'so', 'while', 'for example', 'no doubt', 'first of all', 'to sum up']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.238372093023 0.25644967241 93% => OK
Verbs: 0.135658914729 0.15541462614 87% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0813953488372 0.0836205057962 97% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0678294573643 0.0520304965353 130% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0213178294574 0.0272364105082 78% => OK
Prepositions: 0.0949612403101 0.125424944231 76% => OK
Participles: 0.0193798449612 0.0416121511921 47% => Some participles wanted.
Conjunctions: 2.79121233844 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0290697674419 0.026700313972 109% => OK
Particles: 0.00193798449612 0.001811407834 107% => OK
Determiners: 0.122093023256 0.113004496875 108% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0348837209302 0.0255425247493 137% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00581395348837 0.0127820249294 45% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2739.0 2731.13054187 100% => OK
No of words: 451.0 446.07635468 101% => OK
Chars per words: 6.07317073171 6.12365571057 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60833598836 4.57801047555 101% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.372505543237 0.378187486979 98% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.286031042129 0.287650121315 99% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.19512195122 0.208842608468 93% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.144124168514 0.135150697306 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79121233844 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 207.018472906 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.461197339246 0.469332199767 98% => OK
Word variations: 51.2552899805 52.1807786196 98% => OK
How many sentences: 28.0 20.039408867 140% => OK
Sentence length: 16.1071428571 23.2022227129 69% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.8497189367 57.7814097925 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.8214285714 141.986410481 69% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.1071428571 23.2022227129 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.535714285714 0.724660767414 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 3.58251231527 140% => OK
Readability: 44.71024707 51.9672348444 86% => OK
Elegance: 1.56896551724 1.8405768891 85% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.440877915489 0.441005458295 100% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0766927350133 0.135418324435 57% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0552844856319 0.0829849096947 67% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.47789558959 0.58762219726 81% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.1434843574 0.147661913831 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.171337865573 0.193483328276 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0847597775421 0.0970749176394 87% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.450769027539 0.42659136922 106% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0652217734893 0.0774707102158 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.32555035241 0.312017818177 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.052866334743 0.0698173142475 76% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.33743842365 132% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.87684729064 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.82512315271 166% => OK
Positive topic words: 8.0 6.46551724138 124% => OK
Negative topic words: 6.0 5.36822660099 112% => OK
Neutral topic words: 5.0 2.82389162562 177% => OK
Total topic words: 19.0 14.657635468 130% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.