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.
In the memo, the personal director of the Acme Publishing Company recommends that Acme should encourage the employees to take-up the course called “Easy Read Speed-Read” which would significantly increase their reading speed and there by increasing their productivity. However, the conclusion drawn by the personal director might hold water, it rests on several unwarranted assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument. Thus, to evaluate the argument thoroughly three questions need to be answered.
Firstly, is the Acme Publishing Company and other companies same? Is it possible to make generalizations on the companies based on the course? It is possible that, the working hours of the other companies is less compared to other companies there by having sufficient time for the employees to take up the course. It is also possible that the employees in other companies are very much articulate in English language and also interested to improve the language hence they are comfortable in doing the course. If any of the above scenarios is true, then the argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, are the qualifications of the employees from Ache Publishing Company and other companies are same? It is possible that, the graduate who was able to read 500-page report is from one the best universities in the country making him very much likely that 500-page report is a cup of cake for him. It is also possible that, the graduate who was promoted form assistant manager to vice-president have some certain amount of skills apart form articulate in English. It is also possible that, he/she has very good political connections and he/she used those for his/her promotion. If the above scenarios is true, the argument is significantly doesn’t hold any merit.
Finally, are the employees interested in the three-week seminar and newspapers? It is possible that, during the employees have planed a vacation during those three week and they might not be able to attend that seminar. It is also possible that, many of the employees doesn’t have enough amount of time to read newspapers perhaps, the news is available for free in their smartphones. Further, 500 dollars cut from the employees may not seem that much high, but it is unlikely that everyone can afford it. It may be possible that, the 500 dollars may be life saving for a employee’s family member. If the scenarios is true, then the argument is weakened.
In conclusion, as it stands now, more evidence reading the companies policies is required to scrutinize the argument. Further, additional evidence regarding the qualifications of the employees is required before comparing them. Once enough evidence is handed and above three questions are answered by the personal director of the Ache Publishing Company, the validity of the argument would be fully evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 22 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2358 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.038 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.878 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.273 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.714 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.327 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 437, Rule ID: APART_FORM[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'apart from'?
Suggestion: apart from
...dent have some certain amount of skills apart form articulate in English. It is also possi...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 471, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...kills apart form articulate in English. It is also possible that, he/she has very ...
^^
Line 7, column 570, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... the 500 dollars may be life saving for a employee’s family member. If the scenar...
^
Line 9, column 411, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the argument would be fully evaluated.
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2441.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 463.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27213822894 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63868890866 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95714815604 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.438444924406 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 763.2 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.2801121822 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.954545455 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0454545455 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.40909090909 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.326749074872 0.218282227539 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0926930660689 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.105940894364 0.0701772020484 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.182253859523 0.128457276422 142% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0792342503806 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
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: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.58 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.