"A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied, those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In this article, the author argues that all companies should hire people who need less than six hours of sleep per night in order to be successful. The author cites a recent study rating 300 male and female Metian advertising executives, which revealed an association between the amount of sleep executives need and the success of their firms. In my point of view, this argument relies on dubious assumption, and thus is unconvincing as it stands.
To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that the average of sleep hours at night is a good indicator of measuring one's sleep patterns. To be specific, the average sleep hours are insufficient because some important information, such as dispersion, is missing. Perhaps, those who have higher performance sleep a longer time on weekdays but sleep less on weekends, which leads the totally different insight from the author's conclusion. In addition, sleep at night cannot represent all amounts of sleep in a day. There is a possibility that one takes a nap during the day. Thus, the author should give more details of the study to absolve this doubt.
Moreover, the author relies on a dubious assumption that Mentian advertising executives can represent the whole population of workers. The respondents might be biased because they are engaged in the certain industry and the job position. There are other possible explanations. An advertising industry might be abnormal that the industry is so competitive that all workers should work hard with sleep deprivation. Or executives might have sleep disorders because they are in charge of the company's success and feel huge burdens from it. To bolster the contention, the author should prove that there is no difference between executive and general workers, and that advertising industry is a typical of all industries.
Finally and most importantly, the author unfairly assumes that the success of the business directly results from executives' sleep hours. However, the correlation relationship between the amount of sleep and firm's prosperity does not warrant causality. The direction of the causuality might be reversed on the studied case. Even conceding the executive's less sleep hours contribute to company's fast growth, it is plausible that company can grow fastly without executives who sleep less than six hours. In this case, other factors could be more critical, such as enthusiasm or loyalty for the firm. Before the author testifies that amounts of sleep is the most critical factor of company's best growth, we cannot agree with the author's contention.
In a nutshell, this argument is poorly substantiated and fragile in its given form. To strengthen the argument, the author has to vindicate all aforementioned doubts on the assumptions the author made. The author should illustrate the cited study in detail, prove executives in an advertising industry can represent all workers, and testify strong causality relationship between sleep hours of workers in company an its succeess.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 479 350
No. of Characters: 2470 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.678 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.157 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.737 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 188 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.958 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.724 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 118, Rule ID: ONES[1]
Message: Did you mean 'one's'?
Suggestion: one's
... night is a good indicator of measuring ones sleep patterns. To be specific, the ave...
^^^^
Line 5, column 418, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... the totally different insight from the authors conclusion. In addition, sleep at night...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Finally,
...ry is a typical of all industries. Finally and most importantly, the author unfair...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 679, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[4]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'companys the best'.
Suggestion: companys the best
...of sleep is the most critical factor of companys best growth, we cannot agree with the author...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 726, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...s best growth, we cannot agree with the authors contention. In a nutshell, this a...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 414, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'an' or 'its'?
Suggestion: an; its
...tween sleep hours of workers in company an its succeess.
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, moreover, so, then, thus, as to, in addition, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2535.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 479.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29227557411 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67825486995 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8098797298 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.482254697286 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 770.4 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.8236513709 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.625 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.9583333333 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95833333333 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => 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: 0.358206687471 0.218282227539 164% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0997416556794 0.0743258471296 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109909492979 0.0701772020484 157% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217592665771 0.128457276422 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0887681779944 0.0628817314937 141% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.37 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.