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 of the prompt makes an argument which correlates the success of a firm with the number of hours of sleep required by its executives. However, in doing so, the author makes a number of assumptions which, if proven false, would cause the argument to fall apart.
Firstly, the study takes into account only 300 people. 300 people may not be enough to confirm the correlation. We cannot say whether the same trend follows for a large percentage of the population. It is quite possible that the same results will not be gleaned from the study when a higher number of people are surveyed. If the study gave the same results taking into account a large number of executives, the argument would be stronger. However, for 300 people, it just does not hold water.
The argument mentions that the executives were rated based on the average number of hours they slept each night. Perhaps these employees were very productive on days on which they felt well rested and had enough sleep the night before, and these days accounted for the majority of their profit margins. On the days before which they had less sleep, they might not have been very productive and made less profits those days relatively. The study needs to mention something about the distribution of the executives' profit margins with respect to the days before which they slept for less than 6 hours and the days before which they slept for more.
Lastly, the study's results are based on reports from the executives themselves. These accounts may not be accurate, for whatever reason. The executives may have calculated their averages wrong, or some may not want to admit how much time they actually sleep for. We simply cannot assume that the reports are truthful. If these reports were refuted, the argument would not be able to justify its conclusion.
Therefore, it is clear that even though the author's conclusion is based on a study, it makes a number of assumptions which may not be true. Without verifying the truthfulness of these assumptions, it is futile to conclude anything from it.
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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: 19 15
No. of Words: 354 350
No. of Characters: 1669 1500
No. of Different Words: 165 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.338 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.715 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.345 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 107 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 74 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 47 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 27 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.632 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.942 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.571 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.13 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 378, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...ve the same results taking into account a large number of executives, the argument would be stron...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 400, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun profits is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... not have been very productive and made less profits those days relatively. The stud...
^^^^
Line 9, column 45, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...efore, it is clear that even though the authors conclusion is based on a study, it make...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, so, therefore, well, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1719.0 2260.96107784 76% => OK
No of words: 354.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85593220339 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33761313653 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44505681946 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.491525423729 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 525.6 705.55239521 74% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 43.9076088662 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.4736842105 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6315789474 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.89473684211 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.17276943392 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0547186875996 0.0743258471296 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.051692981851 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0847059881402 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0403485125465 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.