The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the directors of a company that manufactures parts for heavy machinery:
The falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in manufacturing. These delays, in turn, are due in large part to poor planning in purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general business, psychology, and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals. The company should, therefore, move the purchasing manager to the sales department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the purchasing department
The argument that falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with the delays is manufacturing raises some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. The statement that follows reasons the purchasing manager responsible for the delays caused. Further, the argument suggests the replacement of the purchasing manager with a scientist. This does not constitute a logical argument and it certainly does not provide proof or support to the main argument.
Most conspicuously, the argument does not address the main cause of the problem clearly. The argument coincides the falling revenues with the delay in manufacturing and further interlinks the manufacturing delays with the delays in purchase. It can be quite possible that the entire system is working properly and it is the sales department that is unable to sell the product and increase profits.
First, the delay in purchasing might be the result of declining market conditions or problems in demand and supply instead of poor planning as mentioned in the argument. Furthermore, it could also be due to problems in logistics as the manufacturing plants are situated in remote areas that are not accessible easily.
Second, the argument states that a purchasing manager needs to know about the properties of metals to be purchased instead of general business skills and skills in sociology. This is quite absurd because a purchasing manager has to deal with vendors who have limited knowledge about the properties of the product they sell. These vendors are like stock brokers and act only like a middle man in business selling or buying.
Third, the replacement of a purchasing manager with a scientist is the least probable solution that could have been provided. Scientists think more rationally than logically which would cause the business to decline even more. Further, scientists lack general business skills required to deal with clients and seldom avoid to socialize.
In conclusion, because the argument leaves out several key issues, it is neither sound nor persuasive. If it had included the items discussed above it would have been far more through and convincing.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-03-08 | ambarish55 | 80 | view |
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Sentence: The argument that falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with the delays is manufacturing raises some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument.
Description: A verb, present participle or gerund is not usually followed by a verb, base: uninflected present, imperative or infinitive
Suggestion: Refer to experiencing and coincide
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 345 350
No. of Characters: 1800 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.31 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.217 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.77 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.294 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.442 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.353 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.617 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5