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 author introduced an argument in favor of mandating "Easy Read Speed-Reading Course" for Acme Publishing Company believing better performance as a return. They provided accurate examples and analysis supporting their conclusions. They mentioned the costs of the registration of the course and described how this initial costs are future investments with greater return profits. Stated like this, the arguments project the image of a logical and practical statements with no flaws. But after serious consideration it can be derived that the author left many blanks unfilled and did not bother to validate major assumptions that question the credibility of their argument.
First of all, the author makes a statement that many other companies have adopted the "Easy Read Speed-Reading Course", yet failed to mention the type of the companies these are. To illustrate, assume two shops selling apples and books individually. The owner of apple store opted an approach of throwing away his produce everyday to keep fresh apples for sale and attracted many customers. Following his steps the owner of the book store decided to throw away his stocks of unsold books everyday and suffered a huge loss. Since, both the shops are different in terms of their selling items, it would be more beneficial to follow their own tactics to improve sales, independent of each other. Similarly, if the companies that have adopted these courses are different from the company author is residing in, then it could lead to huge loss. Th e author should add the working and nature of the companies they were inspired from to make their argument more convincing to the readers.
Additionally, the author mentions that the faster one reads the more information they can absorb in a single work day. This statement is a fact and is not questionable, but the author failed to make a connection between this improved reading ability and the performance of the employees. To illustrate, image a student who can read at a speeds of 300 words per minute. But this skill is essentially useless when it comes to solving mathematics. Adding to this, when the student is forced to work with computers or other equipment, this skill remains unused and unnecessary. Similarly, the running of the company and the kind of work the employees perform in the company mentioned by the author determines the need for the introduction of these additional courses. The inculcation of facts regarding the detailed data about the work done by the employees can bolster the words of the author more accurately and clearly.
Furthermore, the members of the course are needed to attend the three week seminar in Spruce City. This infers that the employees need to miss on the work if the company is set in different region or cut back on their working hours to attend the seminar if the company is in the same region. Apart from this there are many assumptions that are left with no pillars of support by the author. Is the 500 dollar cost really a wise investment? Did the "Easy Read Speed-Reading Course" help in securing a promotion by the employees mentioned by the author or there are other factors? Since many others performed in these courses equally, how did only one succeed with promotions while others stayed where they are? Is the lifelong subscription of the newsletter from the course worth the entry costs? How exactly is the productivity measures and what factor were included and left out in this analysis? Without providing satisfying answers to the previously mentioned questions, the author is condemned with an obscure argument with many plot-holes.
In conclusion, the author has constructed a well intended argument regarding improving the performance of the workers or employees of the company they are working in. Though it is a noble cause, the author faced a debacle in creating an appreciative analysis of the recommended solution. Unless, modifications are employed, the argument would come across as wishful thinking rather than a concrete thesis or optimum solution based on substantive evidence.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 31 15
No. of Words: 670 350
No. of Characters: 3348 1500
No. of Different Words: 322 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.088 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.997 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.71 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 247 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 184 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 126 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.613 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.714 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.419 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.255 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.255 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.052 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 332, Rule ID: EVERYDAY_EVERY_DAY[3]
Message: 'Everyday' is an adjective. Did you mean 'every day'?
Suggestion: every day
...n approach of throwing away his produce everyday to keep fresh apples for sale and attra...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 498, Rule ID: EVERYDAY_EVERY_DAY[3]
Message: 'Everyday' is an adjective. Did you mean 'every day'?
Suggestion: every day
...o throw away his stocks of unsold books everyday and suffered a huge loss. Since, both t...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 335, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'a speed' or simply 'speeds'?
Suggestion: a speed; speeds
...strate, image a student who can read at a speeds of 300 words per minute. But this skill...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, really, regarding, similarly, so, then, well, while, apart from, in conclusion, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 90.0 55.5748502994 162% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3445.0 2260.96107784 152% => OK
No of words: 670.0 441.139720559 152% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14179104478 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.08766726615 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84098547782 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 328.0 204.123752495 161% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.489552238806 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 1072.8 705.55239521 152% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.3617392152 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.129032258 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6129032258 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.1935483871 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
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: 0.300738858745 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0717283279569 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0747110860135 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16377027821 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0669813434826 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => 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: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 177.0 98.500998004 180% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.