Written paragraph:
In many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to
assemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack a project offers
several advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider range of knowledge,
expertise, and skills than any single individual is likely to possess. Also, because of the
numbers of people involved and the greater resources they possess, a group can work
more quickly in response to the task assigned to it and can come up with highly creative
solutions to problems and issues. Sometimes these creative solutions come about because
a group is more likely to make risky decisions that an individual might not undertake.
This is because the group spreads responsibility for a decision to all the members and
thus no single individual can be held accountable if the decision turns out to be wrong.
Taking part in a group process can be very rewarding for members of the team. Team
members who have a voice in making a decision will no doubt feel better about carrying
out the work that is entailed by that decision than they might doing work that is imposed
on them by others. Also, the individual team member has a much better chance to
“shine,” to get his or her contributions and ideas not only recognized but recognized as
highly significant, because a team’s overall results can be more far-reaching and have
greater impact than what might have otherwise been possible for the person to
accomplish or contribute working alone.
Lecture transcription:
(Professor) Now I want to tell you about what one company found when it decided that
it would turn over some of its new projects to teams of people, and make the team
responsible for planning the projects and getting the work done. After about six months,
the company took a look at how well the teams performed.
On virtually every team, some members got almost a “free ride” ... they didn’t
contribute much at all, but if their team did a good job, they nevertheless benefited from
the recognition the team got. And what about group members who worked especially
well and who provided a lot of insight on problems and issues? Well...the recognition for
a job well done went to the group as a whole, no names were named. So it won’t surprise
you to learn that when the real contributors were asked how they felt about the group
process, their attitude was just the opposite of what the reading predicts.
Another finding was that some projects just didn’t move very quickly. Why? Because
it took so long to reach consensus...it took many, many meetings to build the agreement
among group members about how they would move the project along. On the other hand,
there were other instances where one or two people managed to become very influential
over what their group did. Sometimes when those influencers said “That will never work”
about an idea the group was developing, the idea was quickly dropped instead of being
further discussed. And then there was another occasion when a couple influencers
convinced the group that a plan of theirs was “highly creative.” And even though some
members tried to warn the rest of the group that the project was moving in directions that
might not work, they were basically ignored by other group members. Can you guess the
ending to *this* story? When the project failed, the blame was placed on all the members
of the group.
The lecturer talks about a research made by a company, in which the company studied the outcomes of assigning teams for certain projects. In theory, the outcome should have been better, but, what the saw was quite the opposite of what they would have thought and what was established on the written paragraph.
First of all, the company found out that certain members of the team didn’t participate as much as the others. Furthermore, they were still rewarded because the other members of the team did achieve the objectives and finished the assignment. The latter group felt unrewarded for their hard work because no names were given at the end. This is quite the opposite of what I could read on the paragraph, in where all members felt rewarded because of the good outcome of the project.
Second, the researchers found out that some projects were not advancing as quickly as expected. The reason for that was the difficulty on reaching consensus. In the paragraph, the theory is the opposite: work made by a team should advance faster because its members would make riskier choices and find more creative solutions.
Lastly, the lecturer said that it also had some negative effects that one or two members of the group were more influential than the others. Consequently, they convinced the rest to drop some ideas that could benefit the project and executed others that were not so beneficial for its good outcome. Contrary to what happened on the paragraph, the team members were all blamed when the project failed.
- Many people say that the Internet is the most important invention ever Do you agree or disagree with this and if not what do you believe to be more important Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion 94
- A job should be a job for life. Agree or disagree? 70
- A job should be a job for life. Do you agree or disagree? 70
- Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship between people. Agree or disagree, provide specific reasons and examples to support your thesis. 73
- Summarize the point made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the read passage. 60
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, furthermore, if, lastly, second, so, still, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 10.4613686534 115% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 16.0 22.412803532 71% => OK
Preposition: 28.0 30.3222958057 92% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1280.0 1373.03311258 93% => OK
No of words: 258.0 270.72406181 95% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96124031008 5.08290768461 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.00778971557 4.04702891845 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5148916492 2.5805825403 97% => OK
Unique words: 139.0 145.348785872 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.538759689922 0.540411800872 100% => OK
syllable_count: 387.0 419.366225166 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.116997792494 855% => Less interrogative sentences wanted.
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 32.2800247831 49.2860985944 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.666666667 110.228320801 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5 21.698381199 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.33333333333 7.06452816374 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 4.33554083885 161% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 4.45695364238 90% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.27373068433 23% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.161503044772 0.272083759551 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0632046729061 0.0996497079465 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.040016519134 0.0662205650399 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0998701554827 0.162205337803 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0244676428015 0.0443174109184 55% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 13.3589403974 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 53.8541721854 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 11.0289183223 93% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.2367328918 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 61.0 63.6247240618 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 25.0 Out of 30
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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.