The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"A recent study rating 300 male and female 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 six hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. On the basis of this study, we recommend that businesses hire only people who need less than six hours of sleep per night."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation 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 recommendation.
The excerpt from the business magazine, as shown in the prompt, suggests that the success of a firm depends on the performance of their executives, which is associated with the amount of sleep the executive gets. The prompt recommends hiring business people who require less than six hours of sleep per night. The argument is based on fallacious assumptions. Before this recommendation can be accepted, three questions must be answered.
To begin with, can the apparent association seen between the sleep length and the performance of the executive be accepted? Does the correlation between the amount of sleep they get ensue the firm's success? As every person is different, the amount of sleep required by a person is subjective and is contingent on a number of factors. The executives in the sample might have been those who function better with minimal amounts of sleep. There could have been executives who work better with more hours of sleep. In fact, Scientists have shown that people who sleep for at least eight hours have great mental health; they even displayed improvement in memory and cognitive abilities. So, the association between the sleep length and work performance cannot be ascertained as the sole factor for the firm’s success.
Moreover, Is the performance of the executive the single major factor for the success of an organization? A firm includes hundreds of people working together towards the success of the firm. So, isn’t it possible that there are a myriad of factors besides the performance of the executives, that determines the firm’s success. For example, the executives of the successful firms could have had better skills than the other firms which helped them gain a better edge. Similarly, it is also possible that the firms with success had more qualified employees who performed better than other firms leading to such success. Hence, the success of the firm has multiple factors affecting it.
Furthermore, the argument states a study group of 300 male and female advertising executives was taken for the research but we cannot be sure that this sample is representative of all the executives. The writer of the article doesn’t state how the sampling was done. With such a small sample size, a solid deduction cannot be simply accepted; we need to make sure of possible errors in research due to the small sample size. For example, it is highly likely that the sample consisted of greater number of executives performing well under less sleep, while the real situation might be different and this sample might be just a biased percentage of the executive population. Thus, such a sample obviates us from accepting the argument as it stands now.
The article, showing some good aspects, certainly, is lacking in elucidation of various assumptions. The argument as it stands now is faulty and does not hold water. With proper research by the author (possibly as a detailed report focusing on the fallacious assumptions), the argument might be acceptable. But, as it stands now we the argument is hardly conclusive.
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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: 26 15
No. of Words: 506 350
No. of Characters: 2493 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.743 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.927 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.661 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.172 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.462 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.514 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.156 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 311, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...less than six hours of sleep per night. The argument is based on fallacious assumpt...
^^^
Line 3, column 193, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
... the amount of sleep they get ensue the firms success? As every person is different, ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 231, Rule ID: THERE_RE_MANY[3]
Message: Possible agreement error. Did you mean 'myriads'?
Suggestion: myriads
... So, isn’t it possible that there are a myriad of factors besides the performance of t...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, furthermore, hence, if, moreover, similarly, so, thus, well, while, at least, for example, in fact, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2572.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 504.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10317460317 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73813722054 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75295885165 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 239.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474206349206 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 779.4 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => 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: 49.7788006493 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.9230769231 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3846153846 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11538461538 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 19.0 8.20758483034 231% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.218581614119 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.063318550293 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0646377622135 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114281750446 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0848111681436 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => 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: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.