The vice president of human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company's president.
"In an effort to improve our employees' productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees' Internet use from their workstations. Employees who use the Internet from their workstations need to be identified and punished if we are to reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. By installing software to detect employees' Internet use on company computers, we can prevent employees from wasting time, foster a better work ethic at Climpson, and improve our overall profits."
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.
The concerns of this vice president are quite valid; however, there remain various flaws in his logic. Such holes produce questions that need answering before such a prediction can be expected or confirmed. For instance, one must understand the extent to which this national survey pertains to their employees--especially since there is no indication of sampling procedures or survey validity. The vice president also fails to evaluate when their employees harness the Internet for personal use and whether there is a relationship between Internet use and productivity. All of these assumptions culminate into a highly inaccurate and potentially damaging prediction.
The concerns of this vice president are quite valid; however, there remain various flaws in his logic. Such holes produce questions that need answering before such a prediction can be expected or confirmed. For instance, one must understand the extent to which this national survey pertains to their employees--especially since there is no indication of sampling procedures or survey validity. The vice president also fails to evaluate when their employees harness the Internet for personal use and whether there is a relationship between Internet use and productivity. All of these assumptions culminate into a highly inaccurate and potentially damaging prediction.
Firstly, while the vice president acknowledges the statistics from the national survey, he fails to answer the question: how do our employees compare to the rest of the nation? This is also assuming that the national survey was done correctly; a correct survey involves random sampling and valid measures. But I digress: without an answer to this question, one cannot conclude that this Internet use problem pertains to this company. If such a problem does not exist, then it would be imprudent to waste resources monitoring Internet use and the prediction would be inaccurate. The company should perform a representative survey to find out.
However, if the answer to this question is "yes," then a problem does exist and action may need to be taken. There lies the next question, which can be answered through a simple survey: are the employees actually wasting time with this Internet use? When exactly do employees use the Internet? If employees are using the Internet while off the clock or during related times, then there would be no reason to pursue Internet monitoring technology. Therefore, the prediction would prove null.
Nevertheless, if both of the above questions are true, then the next question becomes: what is the relationship between Internet use and productivity within this company? The vice president should look into research on this topic. If there is no relationship between Internet use and productivity, then monitoring Internet use would not yield any benefits in productivity and profit, as predicted. In fact, previous studies suggest that providing downtime for employees and opportunities to handle personal measures increases productivity. Therefore, monitoring Internet use may actually decrease productivity and profit.
Overall, the vice president has valid concerns; however, he also fails to evaluate the extent to which this survey pertains to their specific employees, whether employees are using the Internet at appropriate times, and the extent to which Internet use relates to productivity. Without answers to these questions, the prediction is not accurate. Answering these questions will provide the company with insight as to whether Internet use is a problem within their company and whether monitoring that use would affect productivity. Similarly, it is important to consider the implications of monitoring Internet use on employee morale, which might also affect productivity and profits. In this way, failing to answer these questions first might might harm rather than augment productivity and profits.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 53, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , &apos
...the answer to this question is 'yes,' then a problem does exist and action m...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 411, Rule ID: WHETHER[6]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "as to"?
Suggestion: whether
...s will provide the company with insight as to whether Internet use is a problem within their ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 610, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (Internet) must be used with a third-person verb: 'uses'.
Suggestion: uses
...the implications of monitoring Internet use on employee morale, which might also af...
^^^
Line 9, column 737, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: might
...failing to answer these questions first might might harm rather than augment productivity a...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, nevertheless, similarly, so, then, therefore, while, as to, for instance, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2751.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 496.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.54637096774 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71922212354 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01070040937 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445564516129 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 853.2 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.9001172021 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.04 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.84 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.68 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.240009103223 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0741436945732 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0555189410511 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.150805122859 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0296501196944 0.0628817314937 47% => 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: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.91 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.37 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.