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
In the memo, the vice president of Butler Manufacturing argues that the company should shorten each of work shifts by one hour so that their employees can rest and improve Butler Manufacturing’s safety. He provides recent study from the government reveals deprivation of fatigue and sleep among employees can affect on-the-job accidents. Although the argument may seem convincing at first, the lack of evidence lead me to question the validity.
First, the vice president needs to supplement specific evidence on Butler Manufacturing’s 30% more on-the-job accidents than Panoply Industries last year. It is quite possible that in the last year, Butler Manufacturing decreased in profit because of adverse economy last year, so the company might have decided to reduce the number of employee. However, economy is getting better this year, which indicates that Butler would hire more people and it might help to reduce the number of accidents. Also, 30% increase may not be substantial because most products by Butler Manufacturing’s are really dangerous such as ships, cars and machines. Compared to other company in same kinds, Butler’s increase is marginal numbers.
Secondly, the vice president needs to add more evidence on the argument that the company should provide employees with more rest time according to the recent government survey that fatigue and sleep deprivation is the major reason for the accidents. However, the president does not provide any information about survey participants and term. The participants might older than the employee in Butler’s whose ages are between 20 and 30 years old, which means that the survey results would not be generalized in the Butler’s company. In addition, the difference incidents between Panoply Industries and Butler might be but because of their type of work, not because of their rest time. Panoply Industries’s workers usually make clothes that do not require any harmful or dangerous process, but in Butler, workers usually produce cars that should use harmful devices. Hence, it might be difficult to compare two companies.
Lastly, more solid evidence needed to the validity of argument that the Butler’s should shorten each of work shifts by one hour in order to improve Butler’s safety record by leading employees to rest more. However, reducing work shifts by one hour does not mean that employees rest more than before. After quitting from work, they might be spending much time on watching television whole night, or hanging out with their friends, which means that they may not rest in their free time as not same as the company expected. In addition, even if they are adequately rested because of work shifts by one hour, it would not be directly connected to the increase in safety record. To be safe, employees should know how to protect themselves from dangerous devices or how to wear safety clothes adequately in the work process. This indicates that the policy of requisite safety education might be more effective than the decision related with work shifts.
In conclusion, the vice president’ statement that the Butler Manufacturing should shorten work shifts by one hour to guarantee employees’ rest is invalid. To bolster the argument, he needs to reconsider other possibilities of high number of job accidents.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 528 350
No. of Characters: 2707 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.794 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.127 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.632 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 210 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 160 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.367 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.491 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, really, second, secondly, so, in addition, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2797.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 528.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29734848485 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79356345386 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78601446125 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.439393939394 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 846.9 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.3930404463 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.136363636 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.27272727273 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.185243847985 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.060681564116 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0627288114447 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113871234734 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0498789551447 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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
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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.