"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 article argues that companies should hire people who need less sleep because these employees are more likely to succeed based on a survey of 300 advertising executives. A number of assumptions have been made about the generalisability of the survey result, the reliability of the reported need of sleep and other related issues. We need to examine the assumptions carefully in order to assess the argument.
To begin with, the assumption that the survey results can be applied more broadly may not hold true. The subjects of the survey are all from a single industry, namely, advertising. Maybe it is important for people in this field to burn the midnight’s oil to prosper. But this rule may not apply to other industries, for example, insurance or manufacturing. In addition, the survey only asks the executives who may have to work extra hours to lead the companies. But for employees at lower level sleeping less may not be very helpful for achieving success.
In addition, it is assumed that the executives actually need little sleep as reported in the survey. In other words, the assumption is that the subjects were telling the truth about their lifestyles during the survey. It is possible that the survey respondents just want to impress others or show their attitudes towards sleep when answering the questions.
Without further data to verify the reliability of the survey results, it is not reasonable to apply the finding in the hiring processes.
Another assumption being made is that the need of less sleep is the main reason why the executives were successful. As we all know, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. A host of other factors unrelated to sleep may have caused the success of the executives. For example, they might happen to have a good team of people working efficiently towards their goals. Or they were lucky enough to meet some clients who were willing to pay higher fees which boosted the profit margins and the growth rates. Without looking into how they achieved success, it is too hasty to attribute their accomplishments to their sleep patterns.
Finally, it is also assumed that executives with less need for sleep can succeed in the long term. Maybe they manage to accomplish more than their peers with their abilities to sleep less. But we do not know how the relatively small amount of sleep would have any negative impact on their health and their performance in the long term. We also do not know how their lifestyles may affect the overall job satisfaction of themselves and their co-workers. If their abilities to sleep less would enable them to work overtime, maybe they would also force their colleagues to work overtime, which may not benefit the long-term success of a company.
In conclusion, it is not reasonable to recommend hiring people who need less sleep based on this survey on a relatively small group of executives from a single industry. More information is needed before we can check the assumptions discussed above and make a more reasonable hiring policy.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK.
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- not OK. need to argue:
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.
----------------
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: 26 15
No. of Words: 510 350
No. of Characters: 2478 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.752 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.859 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.611 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.615 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.357 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.522 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, if, look, may, so, for example, in addition, in conclusion, in other words, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2548.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 510.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99607843137 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75217629947 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73139718188 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 236.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462745098039 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 786.6 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.3176132457 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 98.0 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6153846154 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.57692307692 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.222885465338 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0681565820085 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0537013849505 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10947606402 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0597021000925 0.0628817314937 95% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.72 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.