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 suggests that to increase productivity Acme should make their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course because it worked for other companies which would cost about $500 per employee. This price is justified because of the benefits the course may yield. The author’s argument is based on some implausible assumptions which weaken the argument.
To start with, there is no guarantee that what worked for the employees of the other companies would work for the employees of Acme, that too, for every single employee. It’s a bit of a stretch that the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course would increase productivity of all employees of Acme. There is no evidence provided in support of the assumption that the course worked for every employee of the said company.
Secondly, the author says,” the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday” which doesn’t seem plausible. There is huge difference between learning and reading. Assuming that you’ll learn everything you read is wrong judgment .You might read about how to pilot a plane but does it mean that you can pilot a plane now? Reading could be of various types like passive reading, deep reading, etc. which does not really tantamount to learning. This nullifies the author’s claim.
Further, author assumes that Acme can afford paying $500 per employee for the course. With the clause made above it is not necessary that the course would be beneficial to the company. The company may end up losing a huge capital over a scheme that doesn’t guarantee favorable results. Before investing in this the company should do a thorough research about the course and then make a decision based on the data collected.
To sum up, the author needs to collect more data about the course and evaluate it before investing in the course. The author should pay close attention to the success to failure ratio of this course and decide whether it is worth investing $500 dollars for each employee.
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: 17 15
No. of Words: 336 350
No. of Characters: 1610 1500
No. of Different Words: 165 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.281 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.792 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.437 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 114 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.765 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.48 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.584 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 26, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , &apos
...aid company. Secondly, the author says,' the faster you can read, the more info...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 280, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...rn everything you read is wrong judgment .You might read about how to pilot a plan...
^^
Line 5, column 282, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: You
... everything you read is wrong judgment .You might read about how to pilot a plane b...
^^^
Line 7, column 46, Rule ID: AFFORD_VBG[1]
Message: This verb is used with infinitive: 'to pay'.
Suggestion: to pay
...er, author assumes that Acme can afford paying 00 per employee for the course. With th...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 337, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'thorough research'.
Suggestion: thorough research
...investing in this the company should do a thorough research about the course and then make a decisi...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, to start with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1696.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 333.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09309309309 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27180144563 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.699400719 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.501501501502 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 504.0 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.5156720912 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.2222222222 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.11111111111 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.194098529634 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0623737204284 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.080609406638 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117072989782 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0723029502345 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 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.