The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"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."
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 the article, the author argues that a company should hire people who sleep less than 6 hours per night to prosper. He supplements his argument with the assumption that sleeping less than 6 hours per night leads to the higher profit and that the result of the survey on the executives of advertising firms is reliable. Although the argument may seem convincing at first, the unsubstantiated assumptions lead readers to conclude that the argument is flawed on many grounds.
To begin with, the author assumes that, based on the survey result that reports the correlation between sleeping hour and profit margins, sleeping less than 6 hours entails higher profit. However, it should be noted that the correlation does not imply the causation between the two factors; it is plausible that the executives who reported a higher profit are simply from the firm that requires longer time to commute than that of the lower executives. Therefore, the author should add more information that can clarify the causation between sleeping hours and profits.
Moreover, the author makes an assumption that the survey result is reliable. However, as evinced in the article, the survey is conducted to executives. The characteristic of the repondent is thus diametrically opposed to the newly hired employee, and therefore it is far-fetched to assume that the employee should make more profit if they sleep less. In all likelihood, for newly hired employees, the correlation between the insomina caused by smartphones and sleeping hours can be stronger than that between profit margins and sleeping hours. Therefore, the author should clarify how the survey result extends to the newly hired employees.
Lastly, another assumption the author makes is that in order to succeed, a company should hire people who sleep less than six hours. This assumption is also implausible in that the survey is done to the executives of "advertising" firms. Even if the aforementioned assumptions are all correct, however, it is likely that the causation of sleeping less and making higher profit is only limited to the advertisement industry. For example, in computer science industry, it is possible that people who make more profit tends to sleep more, thanks to the high programming efficiency they have. Therefore, the author should add more information on how the survey result can be applicable to any kinds of industry.
In brief, the argument the author avers is not compelling due to the hasty generalization of the survey result to the employees of any industry. Therefore, the author should bolster his argument by elaborating more on the validity of extending the survey result to the employees of any industry and the correlation between sleeping hours and profits.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-08 | yuktapradeep | 50 | view |
| 2023-08-08 | yuktapradeep | 55 | view |
| 2023-08-01 | DoveKerry | 68 | view |
| 2023-07-12 | Jonginn | 73 | view |
| 2023-05-11 | Manisha_karim2804 | 60 | view |
- The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals One year ago we introduced our first product Bargain Brand breakfast cereal Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top selling cereal companies Alth 66
- The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten year budget for the city of Calatrava The birthrate in our city is declining in fact last year s birthrate was only one half that of five years ago Thus the number of students enroll 69
- Some people believe that government funding of the arts is necessary to ensure that the arts can flourish and be available to all people Others believe that government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts Write a response in which you d 66
- Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim In developing and suppor 66
- Competition for high grades seriously limits the quality of learning at all levels of education Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take In deve 54
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2255 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.067 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.726 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 179 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.722 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.385 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.407 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.587 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.13 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, therefore, thus, for example, in brief, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2318.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 445.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20898876404 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59293186426 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9225062528 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.402247191011 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 705.6 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.7822728625 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.777777778 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7222222222 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.88888888889 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.154226510505 0.218282227539 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0614286097589 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0497318119027 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102421949715 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0302104597081 0.0628817314937 48% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
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: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.