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, to improve overall productivity, Acme should require all of our employees to take the Easy Read course."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The personal director recommends the president of Acme that the company should require the all the employees to take the Easy Read course in order to enhance overall productivity, but the ground work on which the director’s conclusion is laid is unsubstantiated.
Initially, it is proffered that one graduate of the course could read a 500-page report in only two hours and another rose form assistant manager to the position of vice president. Here the author disregards that just because the graduate could read 500 pages in two hours, does not necessarily mean that he is actually getting all the information in the report and understanding it. The reason that reading fast saves time doesn’t mean it actually increases the efficiency and accuracy. Also, the fact that the latter graduate got promoted could be because his development was long due. Or that he was very diligent and meticulous in his work. The writer positing that the sole reason of both the graduates accomplishing what they did was that taking up to Easy Read course.
Additionally, the author claims that the faster a person can read the more information he or she can absorb in a day. Is it really the case? Wouldn’t it be mentally exhausting for someone to get that much information in a single workday, let alone remembering it? The failure of writer to present data that would suggest otherwise renders the claim spurious. Had the writer furnished a compelling example of an employee performing extremely well, the claim would have made more sense.
Furthermore, the author posits that Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee and it is a small price to pay for the benefits it entails. It also mentions that the course fee includes a three week seminar in Spruce City. Is Acme Publishing Company in Spruce City? If Spruce city is another town altogether, than does the course fee include the living and food expenditures of employees that are going to attend the seminar? If not then Does Acme has sufficient funds to support the employees that will attend the seminar in Spruce City? The failure of writer to provide answers to the aforementioned questions calls into question the veracity of this assertion.
Hence, the argument that Acme should encourage all their employees to take the Easy Read Course in order to improve the overall productivity is based on assumptions that cannot be authenticated and fails to make a cogent case.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ? out of 6
Category: ? Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 411 350
No. of Characters: 1979 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.503 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.815 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.632 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.543 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 95, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... that the company should require the all the employees to take the Easy Read cour...
^^
Line 1, column 190, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled as one.
Suggestion: groundwork
...o enhance overall productivity, but the ground work on which the director's conclusion...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 313, Rule ID: COMMA_THAN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'then'?
Suggestion: then
...Spruce city is another town altogether, than does the course fee include the living ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 452, Rule ID: DOES_NP_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'have'?
Suggestion: have
...tend the seminar? If not then Does Acme has sufficient funds to support the employe...
^^^
Line 7, column 452, Rule ID: DOES_X_HAS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'have'? As 'do' is already inflected, the verb cannot also be inflected.
Suggestion: have
...tend the seminar? If not then Does Acme has sufficient funds to support the employe...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, furthermore, hence, if, really, so, then, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => 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: 2042.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 409.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.99266503667 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49708221141 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81539678764 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.533007334963 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 634.5 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.4986905976 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.473684211 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5263157895 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.52631578947 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.268123303556 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0698940483131 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0763495869423 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157728156219 0.128457276422 123% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0851318508716 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.