A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that employees with paid sick leave are 28 percent less likely to be involved in a work-related accident than employees who do not receive payment for sick leave. Researchers hypothesize that employees with unpaid sick leave feel pressured to work during time of illness for fear of lack of pay. On-the-job accidents are then spurred by impaired judgment or motor skills due to illness or illness-related medications. The highest-risk occupations, such as construction, showed the highest discrepancy between paid and unpaid leave.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to determine whether the researchers’ hypothesis is reasonable. Be sure to explain what effects the answers to these questions would have on the validity of the hypothesis.
The author claims that work-related accidents are caused due to unpaid sick leaves and can be reduced if the leaves are paid. Stated this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-mentioned terminology. To support the argument, the author reasons that the accidents may occur due to the effect of illness or medications on the motor skills of the person. While this may seem tenable initially, careful examination of this evidence provides little credible support to the conclusion. Hence, the argument is rife with holes and unsubstantiated.
Firstly, the argument does not provide any information about the employees in the study. The percentage provided cannot be considered unless the number of employees in the study are mentioned. Without the employees count how can we assume that the paid leaves affect work accidents. These assumptions are made on no solid ground. It would have been more convincing if the author explicitly stated the details of the employees, their work environment and their actual count in the study.
Secondly, the author uses vague terminology such as illness. It should be first mention what kind of illness the employees have suffered in the research. Without any details of the illness and its causes, we cannot assume that unpaid sick leaves and work-related accidents are related. No correlation between them has been provided. This again is a weak and unsupported assumption. The author needs to provide more information about the illness so that the argument can be more conclusive to the reader.
Finally, the author cites that illness and medication are the only causes of accidents. The scrutiny of this evidence raises several skeptical questions. For example, Aren't there any other factors that may cause accidents apart from illness? Such as some kind of disturbances and distractions. This presumption can be improved by doing an investigation of other factors which may cause the work-related accidents and ruling them out. Without convincing answers to these questions, it can be considered that the author's claim is more of wishful thinking rather than substantiated evidence.
In conclusion, the author's argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author should provide more concrete evidence of how the paid leaves affect the performance of the employee. Also, a more detailed and analyzed study needs to be don. Unless these assumptions are addressed, the reader of this argument may be sceptical of its claim.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 401 350
No. of Characters: 2070 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.475 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.162 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.777 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.423 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.943 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.283 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.283 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 168, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: Aren't
...veral skeptical questions. For example, Arent there any other factors that may cause ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 21, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...antiated evidence. In conclusion, the authors argument is unpersuasive as it stands. ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, while, apart from, for example, in conclusion, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2121.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 400.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.3025 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.472135955 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86587573876 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.485 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 651.6 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 22.8473053892 66% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 35.5032501221 57.8364921388 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 81.5769230769 119.503703932 68% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.3846153846 23.324526521 66% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.07692307692 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 19.0 6.88822355289 276% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.188836379961 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.051092085179 0.0743258471296 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0660469395565 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112365554885 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0254016598999 0.0628817314937 40% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.25 48.3550499002 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.87 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.53 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.0 11.1389221557 72% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.