The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of a manufacturing company.
"During the past year, workers at our newly opened factory reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries. Panoply produces products very similar to those produced at our factory, but its work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. Panoply's superior safety record can therefore be attributed to its shorter work shifts, which allow its employees to get adequate amounts of rest."
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
In his memo, the vice president of a manufacturing company avers, that longer work shifts in his factory lead to an increased number of on-the-job accidents compared to workers with shorter shifts. His claims are based on numbers from Panoply, a nearby factory, and the opinion of experts doing research in that particular field. However, in order to evaluate this argument properly, some alternative explanations for the stated issues have to be analyzed.
To begin with, it is assumed that both manufacturers are comparable due to the similarity of the manufactured products. Therefore, the numbers of accidents in close relation with the worker’s jobs are claimed comparable as well. But, for instance, Panoply’s factory could boast a completely different and cutting-edge robot assembly line where difficult and thus dangerous jobs are exclusively done fully automatically and without the need of manual labor. Moreover, it could also be the case that as a result of a potential low number of union workers at Panoply’s factory their shifts might be an hour shorter but do not include several short breaks in between working hours and thus offer little rest during shifts whereas the manufacturing company offers these short breaks. If either of these scenarios has merit, the conclusions drawn in the original argument are significantly weakened.
Secondly, the vice president infers from the experts’ statement, that an inadequate amount of rest and the hence resulting sleep deprivation are the only cause of potential accidents in his plant. However, it could also be the case, that the factory is producing goods under potential dangerous and unpredictable circumstances for instance steel. Even with the best possible protection available on the market accidents are would be likely to occur and not a result of low amounts of rest. If the above mentioned is true, the argument does not hold water.
Finally, it is intimated that the numbers of on-the-job accidents are comparable without any mention of their severeness. However, for instance, while the vice president’s factory has comparable higher numbers of accidents in absolute numbers, Panoply’s rarer incidents might be more fatal. Additionally, it might also be the case, that Panoply’s protocol of what to call a work-related accident and that of the mentioned manufacturing company differ. It could therefore be possible that already minor paper-cuts are reported as an incident at one production site, while only broken bones are at the other. If any of these alternative explanations is the case in the given setting, the author’s arguments are again weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the vice president can provide more thoroughly investigated evidence and perhaps conduct a systematic research study, then it will be possible to determine whether his claim that the number of on-the-job accidents is indeed closely linked to the duration of working shifts.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 479 350
No. of Characters: 2507 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.678 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.234 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.885 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 157 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.211 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.956 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.297 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.031 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, hence, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, whereas, while, for instance, in conclusion, as a result, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2588.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 479.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.40292275574 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67825486995 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99393785194 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.511482254697 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 823.5 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.6849637056 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.210526316 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2105263158 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.05263157895 5.70786347227 159% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => 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: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.231601134179 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0653248252361 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0556312339152 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127420043552 0.128457276422 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492965699937 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.03 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.