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."
The author concludes that businesses desire success should only hire people who need less than six hours of sleep every night. This argument is dependent on several assumptions that if false undermine the author's claim. The entirety of their conclusion depends on the fact that people who need less sleep have more successful businesses. However, scrutiny of the article reveals little credible evidence for this claim. Hence the argument can be considered unsubstantiated.
The biggest assumption is that the data provided is credible. There is no mention of how the study was conducted, and no reason is presented for why the word of the advertising executives is veracious. If the study was conducted by a sleep coaching group that trains people to only need six hours of sleep a night, then there is substantial reason to believe the study biased. Additionally, the advertising executives could be lying about needing sleep because they think it could bolster their reputation, or they could be lying about the success of their business hoping the article could gain them new clients. Undoubtedly, if the assumption that the study is accurate is incorrect, then the authors claim is not based in any fact.
Furthermore, even if one posits the information in the study, there is still the issue of "association" versus causation. It is wholly possible that the advertising executives with the most successful business require no more sleep than six hours a night; however this does not mean that their businesses are successful because they need no more than six hours of sleep. Perhaps all of the successful business owners coincidentally attended Harvard business school. It's possible that the successful advertising executives are simply advertising more desirable products, but do not possess better business acumen due to sleeping less. There is not substantial evidence to demonstrate that the sleep is the cause of the business's success.
Finally, assuming that the study was found to be factual and a correlation was proven between the amount of sleep a person requires and how successful their business is, there is no guarantee that the claim holds true for every person who requires less than 6 hours sleep. There is a myriad of different people in the world each with idiosyncrasies that may help or harm them in business. Just because the 300 Mentian advertising experts who slept less performed better does not make this claim universally applicable.
The author's argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it, they would have to provide concrete evidence for the assumptions presented here. By taking the author's claims as fact without proof companies could be hiring employees based on improper criteria, such as sleep requirements rather than the proper advertising abilities. Consequently these employees may not assist the companies in becoming more successful even though they need less than six hours of sleep a night.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 22 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2437 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.131 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.748 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.591 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.408 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.303 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.508 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 421, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...ittle credible evidence for this claim. Hence the argument can be considered unsubsta...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 390, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...o more than six hours of sleep. Perhaps all of the successful business owners coincidental...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 266, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ry person who requires less than 6 hours sleep. There is a myriad of different pe...
^^
Line 7, column 521, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...make this claim universally applicable. The authors argument is unpersuasive as ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... claim universally applicable. The authors argument is unpersuasive as it stands. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 336, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Consequently,
... than the proper advertising abilities. Consequently these employees may not assist the comp...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, finally, furthermore, hence, however, if, incidentally, may, so, still, then, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2497.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 475.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25684210526 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66845742379 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91289158674 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.461052631579 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 752.4 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.1474729276 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.5 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5909090909 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.72727272727 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => 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: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.320023091802 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0863045408993 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0787726068278 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.188743630196 0.128457276422 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0595062147605 0.0628817314937 95% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => 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: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.