The following appeared in an article in a travel magazine:
"After the airline industry began requiring airlines to report their on-time rates, Speedee Airlines achieved the number one on-time rate, with over 89 percent of its flights arriving on time each month. And now Speedee is offering more flights to more destinations than ever before. Clearly, Speedee is the best choice for today's business traveler."
The author of the argument has failed to convince us that Speedee Airlines is the best choice for today's business traveler. The argument, as it stands, is based on questionable assumptions and a faulty line of reasoning, a fact which renders it over simplistic and unconvincing.
First of all, even if we take for granted the validity of the data provided, the author assumes that the figure of 89 percent of flights arriving on time each month is a convincing one. Yet, a percentage figure could be misleading. We need to know the total number of flights operated by Speedee Airlines and therefor...
- 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 50
- “One should not expect respect for disregarding the opinions of others. Only when every point of view is taken into consideration should people take action in the world.” 93
- The following appeared in a memorandum from the Director of the Human Resources to the executive officers of Company X Last year we surveyed our employees on improvements needed at Company X by having them rank in order of importance the issues presented 80
- The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones 76
- "All citizens should be required to perform a specified amount of public service. Such service would benefit not only the country as a whole but also the individual participants." 80
Comments
Why can't this essay get a 6?
Why can't this essay get a 6? Where is the fault?
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
----------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.5 out of 6
Category: Excellent Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 424 350
No. of Characters: 2102 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.538 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.958 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.663 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.941 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.558 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.578 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5