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 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 advice 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 advice.
In this memo, stating experiences of other companies that have their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course, the author argues that Acme Publishing Company should require all of their employees to take the Easy Read Course to improve productivity. Although this claim seems to be convincing at first glance, some flaws and lack of evidence lead me to question the validity of this argument.
First of all, the author assumes that the experiences of other companies could be applied to Acme Publishing company directly. However, in many cases, each company has its characteristics according to the professional field, kind of industry, and working style. Therefore, even if the Speed-Reading Course affected improving productivity for some companies, it will not have a good effect on other companies. To bolster his claim, the author should present more information about the similarity between his company and other companies.
Second, the author argues that the cost of $500 per employee is not expensive, so all of their employees should take the course. However, if the number of employees in Acme Publishing Company is very high, the cost can be a significant amount. In this case, participating in the course for whole employees may be a waste of large budget since some employees could already have similar skills about reading or other employees might not require such kind of skills for working. In addition, although the fee of $500 includes a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter, it may not be beneficial for some employees that they have no interest in the contents.
Third, the author asserts that the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course will make their employees more productive. However, he does not provide enough evidence that joining the course enhances the productivity of their company. For instance, he shows some examples of the effect of joining the course such as one employee could read a 500-page report only in two hours and another employee promoted to vice president of his company in under a year. But I disagree that these cases show the effect of participating in the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course since these only two cases cannot represent the whole benefit of the course.
In addition, fast reading a report is just one of many skills that show someone's productivity for work. Even if the employee can read a report much faster than before, he may not remember the whole contents or understand the exact meaning of the report. Likely, another case of the employee promoted to the vice president might be a specific and unique example since many companies do not have many vice presidents positions in their company. These flaws make this argument weaken inevitably. To strengthen his claim, the author has to provide more successive cases that can show the effect of the Easy Read Speed-Reading Courses.
In conclusion, many flaws and limited evidence make this argument unpersuasive, so the author's advice is not a good decision at this time. To validate his opinion, the author needs to provide more information such as more examples of successful employees, the working environment of his company, and reasonable evidence of improved productivity by joining the Speed-Reading course.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 527 350
No. of Characters: 2660 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.791 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.047 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.751 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 194 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.095 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.479 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 232, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...y of the reading a document and provide some of the benefits such as lifetime access for 00...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 357, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'assumption' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'assumptions'.
Suggestion: assumptions
... has supported his argument using three assumption that if not substantiated will dramatic...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 368, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ntioned about the size of the industry. If Acme Foundation is a small scale indust...
^^
Line 3, column 428, Rule ID: CURRENCY[1]
Message: The currency mark is usually put at the beginning of the number: '$500'.
Suggestion: $500
...s a small scale industry then investing 500$ on each employs might be an extra burde...
^^^^
Line 3, column 591, Rule ID: CURRENCY[1]
Message: The currency mark is usually put at the beginning of the number: '$50000'.
Suggestion: $50000
...mployees and has to invest an amount of 50000$. Let us assume that even if the company...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1096, Rule ID: CURRENCY[1]
Message: The currency mark is usually put at the beginning of the number: '$500'.
Suggestion: $500
...true, then the author’s contention that 500$ is a small amount that be used to inves...
^^^^
Line 4, column 21, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'trues'?
Suggestion: trues
...es not hold water. Finally, even if it true that after taking this course the readi...
^^^^
Line 5, column 218, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'assumption' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'assumptions'.
Suggestion: assumptions
... the argument relies on three unfounded assumption that render its conclusion unpersuasive...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 503, Rule ID: CURRENCY[1]
Message: The currency mark is usually put at the beginning of the number: '$500'.
Suggestion: $500
...urse to all his employees and investing 500$ on each employee.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, still, then, therefore, third, thus, while, as to, in conclusion, such as, as a matter of fact, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 60.0 28.8173652695 208% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3509.0 2260.96107784 155% => OK
No of words: 716.0 441.139720559 162% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.90083798883 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.17283059074 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81016797038 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 278.0 204.123752495 136% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.388268156425 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1088.1 705.55239521 154% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.5919330257 57.8364921388 117% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.962962963 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5185185185 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.55555555556 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.245727159624 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0688644335809 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0650071049155 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.152259996063 0.128457276422 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0430719342034 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.