The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company."Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One

Essay topics:

The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company.
"Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee—a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. Clearly, to improve productivity, Acme should require all of our employees to take the Easy Read course."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the advice 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 advice.

The author of the statement advises that Acme Publishing Company should demand every employee to take Easy Read courses to become able to read fast. The author concludes that by being able to read fast, the productivity would increase. This conclusion is based on the comparison among the Acme Company and “many” other companies whose employees has taken these classes and are seemingly more successful than ever. To evaluate such an advice, the author should answer several vital questions.

First, the author needs to ask whether the nature of the compared companies is similar. The employees of the other companies may not need to grasp the concept of what they read. It may be enough for them to just read and even skip some sentences. However, in a publishing company, mostly it is needed to consider what the concepts are, especially for the team evaluating drafts for publishing. Otherwise, with publishing nonsense materials, the publisher’s credit would be compromised. Hence, before comparison, the similarity is of the most importance to be asked by the author.

Secondly, the author mentioned only two insufficient examples that attending classes benefitted them. How much other people benefitted from these courses? What benefits in what time scale has been brought to their company? Answering these questions can depict the advantages of passing these courses, and can buttress the conclusion. However, the current examples are neither enough, nor are there thorough. First, the one who can read a 500 pages in only two hours, how much of the concepts of the book has been remained in his/her mind? If the all information the reader remembers is, for instance, collectively one page, it would not be efficient at all. In the second example, we need to know whether there was other factors leading to the fast-reader’s promotion or exclusively it was his skill that made him such a position.

Thirdly, who would pay for three weeks staying at Spruce City to attend the seminars? And how much would it cost? The author only said that the registration cost is $500. The cost of going to Seminars and coming back to home town also should be considered. Either it is the company or the employees who pay the costs, it might not be economically justifiable to do so. Furthermore, the three weeks absence of each employee should be compensated by the company itself and the pressure of work intensifies on the employees. The author should delineate all the costs attached to the registration and attending seminars.

In short, as discussed, the argument of personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company is rampant with unclear points. Such ambivalent conditions in the argument are defying any firm interpretation. However, the answers to the discussed questions will lead us to have a better view of the conditions and they help us to make a firm evaluation.

Votes
Average: 6.3 (3 votes)
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Comments

argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- out of topic

flaws:
Need to analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:

condition 1:
One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday.

condition 2:
Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee—a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter.

conclusion:
Clearly, to improve productivity, Acme should require all of our employees to take the Easy Read course.

then here goes the argument:

argument 1:
It is very hard to judge based on two examples only that the course is indeed worth the investment.

argument 2:
The author never discussed about the number of Acme employees. Suppose the NO is 1000, 1000*500 is still a huge money.

argument 3:
Maybe only part of its employees need the course not all of them.

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 478 350
No. of Characters: 2340 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.676 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.895 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.666 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.071 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.447 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.253 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.456 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.1 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5