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."
In the recommendation by the personnel director to the president of Acme publishing company, the director concludes that purchasing the easy reading course would significantly improve the productivity of it's employees. However the director based his recommendation on the following three arguments, which if disproved, would weaken the validity of the report considerably.
Firstly, is reading a 500 page report in 2 hours a sign of productivity? It can be argued on a similar tone that it is a sign of mindless and lax reading. Maybe the employee skipped multiple parts from the report which would lead to him or her having an incomplete knowledge of the relevant details. As the saying the goes "half knowledge is more harmful than no knowledge", such an employee can cause more loss to the company than if he hadn't read the report at all. Maybe the employee is just going through the words of the report without really understanding the information the report sought to present. Such a practice, may lead to completing a report in 2 hours but won't impart the relevant details to the employee and moreover would be a waste of valuable work-hours for the company.
Secondly, was the easy reading course the primary factor behind the steep rise of the graduate? It maybe the case that the graduate was naturally talented and went through the ranks of the company relying on his impressive performance and business acumen without even taking the course. In this case the easy reading course would have virtually no hand in the progress of the employee. Maybe the employee was related to a high ranking official in the company like a CEO or a director. A shrewd person in this case can also have a meteoric rise in the company by currying favours from his superiors owing to his relationship. If such a case be true, it would also disprove the relationship between the course and the productivity.
Finally, is 500 dollars really a small price to pay for the company? 500 dollars while may seem like a small price individually but will burgeon into a significant amount when taken into account for all the employees in the company. Is the company profitable enough to incur such a cost? Many small and intermediate companies starting out are strapped of cash and as such investing in such a scheme may spell doom for them in case the investment does not produce the desired results.
To conclude, it is possible that in accordance with the recommendations of the director, there may be a significant rise in the productivity of the employees, however the director needs to provide further information on the aforementioned points that is evidence regarding the fact the speed reading does not hinder information retention, evidence that the course is a major factor behind growth of the employees and evidence for the fact that company can incur such a cost. Failure to provide evidence on any of these arguments could render the inconsistent and damage it's validity considerably.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 505 350
No. of Characters: 2442 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.74 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.836 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.802 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.842 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.323 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 220, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...rove the productivity of its employees. However the director based his recommendation o...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 306, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...on the following three arguments, which if disproved, would weaken the validity of...
^^
Line 2, column 448, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hadn't
...use more loss to the company than if he hadnt read the report at all. Maybe the emplo...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, really, regarding, second, secondly, so, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2490.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 503.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95029821074 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73578520332 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92614015435 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467196819085 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 777.6 705.55239521 110% => 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: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 87.6207024624 57.8364921388 151% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.5 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.15 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.5 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.295116063964 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.084654732553 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0749701998219 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.158704358953 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0727210531374 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.