Company X has just switched to a 4-day workweek, mandating that employees work 10 hours per day from Monday to Thursdaybinstead of 8 hours per day from Monday to Friday. Although the policy is new, Company X claims that the policy would help to increase p

The author of the statement argues here that the switch to a 4-day week, with remaining weekly working hours, helps the company to increase profits while boosting the employee’s morale. Stated in this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-defined terminology. To justify this recommendation, the author reasons that closed offices on Fridays cuts costs and less total commuting time to work per week results in higher motivation of the employees. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that the claim provides only little credible support for the author’s conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered incomplete or unsubstituted.

First of all, the argument assumes that shutting down the office on Fridays will cut costs and, therefore, raise the profits of company X. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. For example, rents to be paid either way, electricity and water use will be higher on the other weekdays due to longer working hours or even higher in total since more lights are used when it is dark, what is more likely to happen after an eight-hour shift. Additionally, workers might have one meal in the company with the new rules, which produces additional costs from, for instance, the use of microwaves in the office kitchen. Thus, saving costs is not proved and with convincing evidence and would have been much more understandable if it explicitly stated that fewer costs are measured at other offices after the change of working schedule.

Secondly, the argument readily claims that the moral of the workers raises with less travel time to work on a weekly basis. This again is a weak and unsupported claim as it does not demonstrate any clear correlation between commuting time and productivity. To illustrate further, the marginal working productivity usually decreases within time, after basic economic principles, and would result in even lower morale with such long working hours. If the argument had provided evidence of a clear correlation between the employee’s moral, commuting time considering longer working hours, it would have been much more convincing. Since the commuting time is not proved to have a significant impact on workers productivity and motivation, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking that a substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must provide more concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a reliable survey of the company’s employees and their personal working preferences when it comes to working hours per day and commuting times. Finally, to better assess the argument, it would be necessary to know more information about the true chance in costs of a 4-day week and if profits will possibly fall or rise with the proposed change.

Votes
Average: 6.1 (3 votes)
Essay Categories
Essays by the user:

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 704, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'workers'' or 'worker's'?
Suggestion: workers'; worker's
... proved to have a significant impact on workers productivity and motivation, the reader...
^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion, first of all, what is more

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2460.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 470.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23404255319 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65612321451 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8679683037 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.514893617021 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 764.1 705.55239521 108% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.0301241364 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.666666667 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1111111111 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.33333333333 5.70786347227 146% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.174753736452 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.05223221134 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0559941053094 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114135654931 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0409743653134 0.0628817314937 65% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.35 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.

Sentence: Additionally, workers might have one meal in the company with the new rules, which produces additional costs from, for instance, the use of microwaves in the office kitchen.
Description: A preposition is not usually followed by a comma
Suggestion: Refer to from and ,

Sentence: Since the commuting time is not proved to have a significant impact on workers productivity and motivation, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking that a substantive evidence.
Description: A noun, plural, common is not usually followed by a noun, singular, common
Suggestion: Refer to workers and productivity

Sentence: Stated in this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-defined terminology.
Error: ill-defined Suggestion: ill defined

Sentence: Hence, the argument can be considered incomplete or unsubstituted.
Error: unsubstituted Suggestion: No alternate word

Sentence: For example, rents to be paid either way, electricity and water use will be higher on the other weekdays due to longer working hours or even higher in total since more lights are used when it is dark, what is more likely to happen after an eight-hour shift.
Error: eight-hour Suggestion: eight hour

Sentence: In conclusion, the author's argument is unpersuasive as it stands.
Error: unpersuasive Suggestion: No alternate word

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flaws:
for GRE argument essays, minimum three arguments wanted.

and the introduction paragraph is too long.

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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 470 350
No. of Characters: 2381 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.656 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.066 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.663 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.647 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.42 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.526 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.057 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5