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 ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
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 memo from the vice president of Quiot Manufacturing comes to a conclusion that they will reduce each of their three work shifts by one hour so that employees get more sleep thereby reducing the number of on-the-job accidents. They come to this conclusion as the nearby Panoply Industries plant has one hours less work shift and also experts suggesting that sleep and fatigue are the main causes of the accidents. However, there are some serious unstated assumptions behind the argument that need to answered.
First of all, The vice president has decided to reduce just three of the work shifts to one hour. Considering there are 5 working days, reducing the working hours for 3 days, still forces the workers to work for more time during the remaining 2 days. Wouldn’t the extra work in those two days cause more fatigue and sleep deprivation on the very next day of the work? Thus, increasing the chances of accidents. Also, for the 3 shifts with reduced one hour of work, it could also be that the workers now have to complete the same work in less amount time causing increased fatigue during the actual work hours and thus seriously risking not only efficiency of the work but also their lives. If the above does hold true then the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the experts have said that fatigue and sleep are significantly contributing to the accidents. But what if there are other factors, especially the maladroitness of the workers that are causing more accidents. There is no authenticity behind the statement of experts. Wouldn’t the ineptness of a worker be riskier in the manufacturing plant during the operations? If for example, there is a certain way and set of instructions to be followed to store some hazardous materials and If the worker is even unable to do that, then that eventually causes danger to not only him but also the other workers in the plant as well. Even if the plant does manage to reduce the cause of fatigue and sleep by their conclusion, there is a still a big factor looming in the plant that can cause more accidents. If the above does hold merit, then the conclusion in the argument is significantly weakened.
Lastly, The vice president of Quiot Manufacturing plant is comparing the work done there to the work in Panoply Manufacturing plant. It could be that work in panoply plant isn’t as much as time constraining or physically draining than in Quiot, which could be the reason why Panoply workers have one hour less shift than Quiot. It could also be Panoply plant has different working than Quiot plant. For example, the Supervisors of Panoply plant might organise routine events or team building activities to boost the morale and team work between the workers which eventually contributes to increase work ethics and less accidents. If the above does hold true, the Quiot plant has to rethink that by changing just working hours will they be able to reduce the on-the-job accidents.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is considerable flawed due to its reliance on several unstated unassumptions. If the vice president is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic study), then it will be possible to fully validate the proposed recommendation to reduce the three working shift by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep.
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Comments
e-rater score report
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 582 350
No. of Characters: 2749 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.912 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.723 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.586 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.304 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.261 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.826 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.506 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 303, Rule ID: ONE_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use the numeral 'one' with plural words. Did you mean 'one hour', 'an hour', or simply 'hours'?
Suggestion: one hour; an hour; hours
...the nearby Panoply Industries plant has one hours less work shift and also experts sugges...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 691, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...iency of the work but also their lives. If the above does hold true then the argum...
^^
Line 7, column 615, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun accidents is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...contributes to increase work ethics and less accidents. If the above does hold true,...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, well, as to, for example, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => 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: 2818.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 579.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86701208981 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90534594407 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6569597013 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.397236614853 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 860.4 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.8445865217 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.52173913 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1739130435 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.78260869565 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.303798373644 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0974243151111 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0992863382053 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181253920694 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.10070927117 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.6 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.