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 writer of the argument recommends that Acme Company should require its entire staff to participate in the Easy Read Speed-Reading course because many other organizations’ workforce improved their productivity via taking part in such a course. However, the conclusion cannot be accepted mainly because it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.
The first problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that one graduate of the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course is able to read a 500-page report in only two hours mainly because she took part in this course. However, there is no concrete evidence that bolster this declaration. Maybe she practiced speed reading during bygone years, and she decided to engage in the course only in order to complete her previous practices. Besides, it is not mentioned in the argument whether the graduate is productive or not. Maybe she became an expert in speed reading, but she is virtually unproductive since these two abilities are generally irrelevant to each other. Indeed, the writer's presumption may not be true.
Another problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that another graduate get promotion mostly because he took part in Speed-Reading Course. Nevertheless, it is highly likely that he rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company as a result of showing good performance such as great manipulation of the workforce and superb problem solving during previous years in his job environment. Moreover, it is not mentioned in the argument whether the graduate showed improvement in his speed reading skill or not. Maybe he passed the course without any improvement in his skill, so it is fallacious to ascribe his promotion to Speed-Reading course.
Another problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that Acme Company would endure a small price of $500 per employee which is not really comparable to the benefits. Nonetheless, it is not stated that how many employees are in the company. Maybe there are 200 personnel, and the cost would impose a great pressure on the organization. On top of that, although there is a free three-week seminar in Spruce City, it is not mention how far the city is. Maybe the company is not in the vicinity of Spruce City, imposing a prodigious amount of money for transportation, Accommodation, and food on the company over the course of three weeks.
In the final analysis, the writer’s conclusion cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on some assumptions, each of which is questionable. The conclusion can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to are all removed.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2214 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.909 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.796 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.737 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.585 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 677, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
...y irrelevant to each other. Indeed, the writers presumption may not be true. Another ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, nonetheless, really, so, such as, as a result, on top of that
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2277.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 451.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.0487804878 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60833598836 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95302894316 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.483370288248 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 721.8 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.9197303629 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.842105263 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7368421053 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.52631578947 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.258485443222 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0740288046176 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0819945551515 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13257971897 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.077596267356 0.0628817314937 123% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.