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 argument is full of fallacies and loopholes. The author states that all employees will be benefited from taking the course.
First and foremost, the author of the argument tells us that many other companies have had their employees take the course which led to the increase in productivity. However, the author fails to delineate as to how productivity was increased by just taking the reading course. Had the argument stated the before and after changes with the employees, or any scores of a standardized test, it would have given strength to the argument. Also, the sources of this information must also be cited so that the argument or the claims become more believable.
Secondly, in the argument, examples of two graduates have been taken into consideration. One of them was able to read a 500-page report in just two hours, and other rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. It may also be true that the reading speed -also known as words per minute (WPM)- of the former graduate was already good and after taking the course, it significantly increased. Moreover, the latter one had the skill set or the managerial skills, which the company saw, and rewarded. While it is true that speed reading is good, it also has its own cons.
Last but not least, the conclusion of the argument blatantly states that all the employees of the company would benefit greatly after taking the Easy Read course. The author claims that those people who already read fast will also be benefitted from the course. It should be taken into consideration that there are jobs within the publishing companies to find errors and correct them. If the employees who work at the correction department tend to read faster, they might remiss their duties and some mistakes will take place.
In conclusion, the author of the argument, who is the personnel director of the president of a publishing company should add some evidence in the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not exactly
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explanations here:
https://www.testbig.com/comment/133441#comment-133441
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 336 350
No. of Characters: 1590 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.281 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.732 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.49 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 108 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 72 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.727 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.356 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 333, Rule ID: FORMER_GRADUATE[1]
Message: Use simply 'graduate'.
Suggestion: graduate
...o known as words per minute WPM- of the former graduate was already good and after taking the c...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, while, as to, in conclusion, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1633.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 336.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.86011904762 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28139028586 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58889399062 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.52380952381 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 499.5 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.4615949173 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.0625 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.6875 5.70786347227 117% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.30521656365 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0964826192843 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0654115146196 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162069452195 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0397813450302 0.0628817314937 63% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.59 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 98.500998004 63% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.