The vice president of human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company's president.
"A recent national survey found that the majority of workers with access to the Internet at work had used company computers for personal or recreational activities, such as banking or playing games. In an effort to improve our employees' productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees' Internet use from their workstations. Using electronic monitoring software is the best way to reduce the number of hours Climpson employees spend on personal or recreational activities. We predict that installing software to monitor employees' Internet use will allow us to prevent employees from wasting time, thereby increasing productivity and improving overall profits."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction 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 prediction.
The recommendation argues that Climpson Industries should implement an electronic monitoring of employees internet use in order to qualify the amount of time spent on personal activities, leading to increased productivity and overall profits based on the results of a national survey. However, the argument, as stated cannot be effectively evaluated due to a lack of information. Thus, more questions should be asked in order to elucidate the situation, which will help determine whether or not the recommendation will produce the intended results.
First, was the national survey conducting scientifically in order to be generalized to the entire population? If the survey only consisted of college aged students, but Climpson Industries employs a range of ages, the results of the national survey may not be applicable to Climpson Industries. College aged students may spend significantly more time on personal and recreational activities at work than any other age, which could have skewed the results of the survey to say that a majority of workers use company computers to engage in personal activities. If individuals at Climpson Industries do not match the sample population of the survey and spend less time on recreational activities, than it is unlikely that implementing the electronic monitoring system will significantly change productivity levels. Additionally, if the national survey focused on retail workers, whereas Climpson Industries is a tech company, then the results of the survey cannot be generalized to the Climpson Industries. Retail workers may have less responsibility and commitment to their work than employees at Climpson Industries, so they may waste more time on leisure activities, whereas Climpson employees spend their days working. If either of these cases holds true, than the argument is severely hampered.
Second, will reducing the amount of leisure time employees have actually increase productivity and lead to an increase in overall profit? The time spent on personal activities may refresh employees brains, who come back ready to work harder. Reducing their breaks and time for personal activity may lead to slower productivity and a lesser quality of work, thereby reducing overall profits. Furthermore, if Climpson Industries profits are not purely dependent on how much their employees work, than a simple increase in productivity may not be enough to significantly increase their overall profits. If either of these is the case, then the recommendation that reducing the amount of time spent on personal activities by installing an electronic monitoring software to increase productivity and profit will not hold water.
Last, when and where to the employees conduct these personal activities? If employees use their phones, then they can use their own data to continue these activities, even if the company installs an electronic monitoring software on the company computers. Thus, the amount of time spent on personal and recreational activities will not decrease. Additionally, if employees only use the company computers to engage in personal activities during their lunch hour, then the new software may not be effective. Employees my still use their lunch hour to waste time on personal activities, thus the overall time spent on personal activities will not change. If either of these appropriately describes the use of Internet at Climpson Industries, then it is unlikely that the new monitoring software will result in employees using less of the Internet for their personal activities.
In conclusion, the argument is not presented cogently enough to be properly evaluated. More evidence about how the survey was conducted, the relationship between decreased leisure time, productivity, and overall profit, and the situations in which employees use the Internet for personal activities is needed. Further clarification on these instances will help to effectively evaluate the argument.
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: 24 15
No. of Words: 604 350
No. of Characters: 3280 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.957 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.43 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.999 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 262 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 212 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 168 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 103 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.499 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.553 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 481, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...he situation, which will help determine whether or not the recommendation will produce the int...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1258, Rule ID: COMMA_THAN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'then'?
Suggestion: then
...g. If either of these cases holds true, than the argument is severely hampered. ...
^^^^
Line 9, column 14, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'reduce'
Suggestion: reduce
...s severely hampered. Second, will reducing the amount of leisure time employees ha...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 74, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'increased'.
Suggestion: increased
...of leisure time employees have actually increase productivity and lead to an increase in...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, so, still, then, thus, whereas, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3366.0 2260.96107784 149% => OK
No of words: 604.0 441.139720559 137% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.57284768212 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95746018188 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0818098888 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.380794701987 0.468620217663 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1066.5 705.55239521 151% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 15.0 2.70958083832 554% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.82945114 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.25 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1666666667 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.41666666667 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => 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: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.169416641446 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0566481613287 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0548873040457 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100503801407 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0643813755357 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.4 14.3799401198 121% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 29.18 48.3550499002 60% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.32 12.5979740519 122% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 136.0 98.500998004 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 16.0 12.3882235529 129% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.