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.
The author recommends that businesses should hire people who need no more than 6 hours of sleep per night only in order to thrive. To support this proposal, the author cites the result of a study of 300 advertising executives which shows that those firms with executives reported needing less than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. However, this argument depends on several unsubstantiated assumptions which will be discussed below and is therefore unpersuasive as it stands.
To begin with, the author does not provide any information concerning the sampling methods adopted in the survey. Unless the surveyors sampled a sufficient number of subjects and did so randomly across the entire spectrum, the survey results are not reliable to gauge the relationship between sleeping hours and business’s prosperity generally. For example, if the sample did not include those who sleep more than 6 hours while leading a successful business, then the results would no doubt suggest that companies whose executives sleep less than 6 hours have higher margins and faster growth.
Even assuming the survey result is sound, no evidence is given to substantiate the claim that less sleep contributes to business success. If those executives are having less sleep for personal reasons, for example, they spend the time on some recreational activities, or the executives actually work less effectively during the days because of shorter sleeping time, it seems untenable to conclude that less sleep could contribute to better performance of business.
What’s more, the author does not rule out other factors that might be influencing the organization’s profit margins and growth. It is entirely possible that those firms having a better performance locate in areas that are in nature more prosperous than others. Or perhaps the firms implement some policies that lead to better results. Many factors contribute to the performance of a company and it is unfair to conclude that shorter sleeping hours has direct link with business success without addressing those factors.
Finally, even if the survey is credible, the survey included only executives and hence the conclusion cannot necessarily be applied to other employees. Perhaps employees need more sleep in order to stay active and efficient at work. Insufficient sleep could potentially lead to higher error rates, which would by no means benefit the company. And the survey took into account advertising firms only, so it cannot be generalized to all businesses. Situations vary from industries to industries.
In sum, only if the author provides clear evidence that less than 6 hours of sleep, and not some other reasons, was in fact responsible for the prosperity of the business and that this could be applied to all employees in all companies could I be convinced that his recommendation is reliable.
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 18 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2383 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.158 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.731 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.601 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.587 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.055 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, hence, however, if, so, then, therefore, while, for example, in fact, no doubt, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2457.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.31818181818 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8706529921 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 745.2 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 75.9176982895 57.8364921388 131% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.5 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.6666666667 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.5 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => 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: 0.184487348431 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0579390320382 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0578682446482 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10230894005 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0519236625754 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.88 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.