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.
The article states that those employees who participated in the Easy Read Speed-Reading not only read much faster but also acquire higher productivity. It seems a good investment for companies since it only cost $500 per employee and can bring enormous benefit to business. The author suggests Acme provide the courses to all of their employees, however, there's not enough evidence that shows strong connections between speed-reading and productivity.
First, the author asserts that reading faster can improve the productivity but failed to provide convincing support to make this argument invulnerable. Fast reading has no direct connection with high productivity, instead, it might cause some avoidable errors. Lots of mistakes were caused by careless, which means detail-oriented reading may avoid some unnecessary mistakes. For instance, working in a government agency, in order to avoid inappropriate policies which could make big influences on the whole nation, accuracy is much more important.
Second, the statement claims that the person who got promoted from assistant manager to vice president in a year after graduation. The editor cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the Easy Read Speed-Reading course and his/her promotion. There are too many personal characteristics and professional performance for upper manager to evaluate an employee. Sucha as cooperation with the team, multi-task ability, and future career growth will all be taken into consideration, not just based on how fast you can read. Moreover, efficiency could be important but not always the priority, sometimes you would like to do things better, not faster. For example, working in a R&D group, it is important to have new ideas while looking into papers. Critical thinking and problem solving skills here are more critical than faster reading.
Finally, the assertion stats that the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Although people who possess faster reading speed can browse more paper works in the same time period, it doesn't mean that they can remember all information and look into the details they have been read. It lacks statistical evidence to show how correlation factor between speed reading and information absorbance.
To sum up, while the conclusion and the whole argument might be plausible, the author should assess the assumptions to substantial the argument. It is always good to have training courses from employee viewpoints, but not always benefit the company. Different skill sets are needed in different positions, we should look more detail at a department, even group level, trying to figure out which team need speed-reading courses, instead registering all employee for unnecessary training.
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 429 350
No. of Characters: 2289 1500
No. of Different Words: 255 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.551 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.336 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.882 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.45 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.029 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 354, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...ses to all of their employees, however, theres not enough evidence that shows strong c...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 222, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...paper works in the same time period, it doesnt mean that they can remember all informa...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, may, moreover, second, so, while, for example, for instance, on the whole, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2361.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.54225352113 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9702813974 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 259.0 204.123752495 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.607981220657 0.468620217663 130% => OK
syllable_count: 706.5 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
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: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.4489711789 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.05 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.5 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.268207200363 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0802136920656 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0750750400759 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.156325997363 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0706726816544 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.85 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.24 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.