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.
In this argument, the author attempts to attribute the better safety record of Panoply Industries to its shorter work shifts, which provides the employees more adequate amount of rest. He base this conclusion on the claim their factory reported more accidents on the job than Panoply Industries, the similarity of products between the two industries and an assertion from experts that fatigue contribute to occurrence of on-the-job accidents. Whereas, failing to present cogent evidence, his argument is severely undermined for its validity.
As is mentioned, the 30 percent of on-the-job accidents reported by workers of their factory more than Panoply Industries implies a better safety record of that company. The author apparently premises that the sizes of these two factories are almost the same. There is possibility that, however, the size of the author's factory is distinctly larger than the other one, and the number of stuffs is twice as many as Panoply Industries, in which case the proportion of on-the-job accidents occurrence is lower. Thus more detailed descriptions about the two companies are needed to warrant the comparability of them.
Even though Panoply Industries own a better safety record, the author should not attribute the difference merely to their work shifts based on their similar products. He obviously assumes there to be no other critical distinctions that could generate the difference in safety. Nevertheless, the workers' skill and administrations of production in Panoply Industries is significantly superior to the author's so that their employees do not need shorter work shifts to keep safe. Hence the author is requested to provide more explicit analysis of the difference between the two factories in order to ensure the importance of distinction in work shifts.
Even if the shorter workers' state is the most significant difference between the two companies, the author should not rush to the assertion that the superior situation of production of Panoply Industries is caused by the shorter shift according to experts' claim. He clearly precludes any other potential factors that could evoke one's fatigue, which seems unfounded. The workers might undergo a reduction of payment, which greatly impairs their subjectivity of producing. Thereby more comprehensive factors should be taken into account when considering the cause of the exhausted productivity.
Conclusively, the author tries to attribute the better performance in safety record of Panoply Industries to its shorter work shifts. Nonetheless, lacking in convincing evidence, the authenticity of his argument is seriously impaired.
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flaws:
You have a pattern in your mind for argument essays, but it doesn't work always. So don't try to apply it to everywhere.
Need to analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:
condition 1:
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.
condition 2:
Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers.
conclusion:
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
then here goes the argument:
argument 1:
Maybe 30 percent more on-the-job accidents are not because of fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. But something else.
argument 2:
Compare and contrast A and B. It works in A, it doesn't mean it will work in B.
argument 3:
Maybe workers don't use this one hour for sleep.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 404 350
No. of Characters: 2196 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.483 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.436 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.902 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 184 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 146 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.765 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.607 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.343 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5