The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.
"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In this argument, the vice president of Quiot Manufacturing recommends that its factory should shorten the work shift by one hour in order to reduce the occurrence of on-the-job accidents in his/her factory. To justify the recommendations, the vice president points out that panoply industries plant, a company close to the vice president’s company, had 30 percent less on-the-job accidents than the vice president’s company, and their work shift was one hour shorter than the vice president’s company; The vice president also cites some experts’ opinion that fatigue and sleep deprivation was one of the main causes of on-the-job accidents, which may seem reasonable at first glance. With a series of unwarranted and poor assumptions and holes, however, this argument fails to be wholly persuasive as it stands.
A paramount problem involved in this recommendation is that the vice president simply assumes that fatigue and sleep deprivation were the main cause of the vice president’s company’s higher on-the-job accidents. without providing credible evidence, the vice president apparently cannot substantiate this crucial assumption, though this is entirely possible. it is much likely that the vice president’s company’s on-the-job accidents were caused by its employees’ lack of safety training on how to operate its complicated and modern equipment installed in its company. An appropriate example is not far to seek, if its workers have not received working safety training that is required by the government, then it is likely that its workers will get hurt by its complicated and difficult-to-operate machines. In order to strengthen his/her argument, the author should provide more reliable evidence and have to rule out these and other possible alternative explanations. For example, if the arguer can convince me that its company’s higher on-the-job accidents were mainly caused by workers’ fatigue and sleep deprivation, this argument will be significantly strengthened.
Additionally, it is not safe to unfairly assume without substantiation that Quiot Manufacturing’s 30 percent fewer on-the-job accidents than the vice president’s company are significant enough to change its work shift. In this case, we may wonder whether the actual difference on-the-job-accidents between these two companies is not that significant as it seemed possible or not. For example, if the vice president’s company’s on-the-job accidents happened last year is 4 cases, and the panoply industries plant happened 3 cases of on-the-job accidents during the last year and the actual difference between 3 and 4 is not significant enough to change its work shift. Thus, the author should supply more convincing evidence to confirm this assumption. otherwise, there is little chance that this unsolid assumption can be bolstered.
Finally, even if the foregoing assumptions on which the conclusion is based on are reasonable, the argument merely relies on the assumption that if the vice president’s company shorten its work shift by one hour its employees will spend the time on sleeping and not on other activities and we are not informed any pervasive and professional evidence. In fact, it could turn out to be the case, however, it will be questionable if its workers use this extra time on other activities such as playing online games, online shopping, and partying instead of sleeping. if so, anyone would be reluctant to accept the arguer’s recommendation.
To sum up, there are, as I have presented, many obvious flaws that need to be addressed before the proposal can be seriously scrutinized. otherwise, any impetuous implementation of this recommendation would be unlikely to have the desired consequences.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 577 350
No. of Characters: 3072 1500
No. of Different Words: 248 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.901 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.324 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.063 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 233 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 187 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 138 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 105 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 38.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 17.813 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.385 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.615 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.157 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 223, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Without
...any's higher on-the-job accidents. without providing credible evidence, the vice p...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 369, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...tion, though this is entirely possible. it is much likely that the vice president&...
^^
Line 13, column 773, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Otherwise
...ng evidence to confirm this assumption. otherwise, there is little chance that this unsol...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 19, column 569, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...ping, and partying instead of sleeping. if so, anyone would be reluctant to accept...
^^
Line 25, column 139, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Otherwise
... proposal can be seriously scrutinized. otherwise, any impetuous implementation of this r...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, finally, first, however, if, may, so, then, thus, for example, in fact, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 56.0 28.8173652695 194% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3258.0 2260.96107784 144% => OK
No of words: 574.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.67595818815 5.12650576532 111% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89472135074 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.51389366317 2.78398813304 126% => OK
Unique words: 268.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.466898954704 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 1003.5 705.55239521 142% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 100.22257778 57.8364921388 173% => OK
Chars per sentence: 171.473684211 119.503703932 143% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.2105263158 23.324526521 130% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.68421052632 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.237091977288 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0749024400788 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0955616531555 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142475355359 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.126142333229 0.0628817314937 201% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 20.4 14.3799401198 142% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 32.57 48.3550499002 67% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.2 12.197005988 133% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.26 12.5979740519 129% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 143.0 98.500998004 145% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 29.0 12.3882235529 234% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 29.0 11.9071856287 244% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
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.