The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.
"A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night."
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 author of the article published in a business magazine recommends that a business need to hire only those people who need less than 6 hours of sleep at night in order to flourish. He provides evidence of a study conducted on Mentian advertising firm’s executives in order to provide support for his recommendation showing that those executives who used to sleep no more than 6 hours at night had higher profit margins and faster growth. However, before evaluating the argument, the underlying assumptions on which the argument stands must be scrutinized properly.
First of all, the author assumes that the sample size for the study which is 300 male and female executives is a significant number to conduct a fruitful study. In reality, this may not be the case. It is very possible that the sample size is too much small to reach such conclusion. Perhaps, the sample size is only one-tenth of the total executives working in Mentian advertizing firm. If this is the case, then result of the study will be erroneous and the argument on which the argument on which the recommendation is based is seriously flawed.
Secondly, the author, without evidence, assumes that the executives they chose did not change their sleeping habit in the time of this study. It is very likely that the executives changed their normal sleeping time at night reduced to 6 hours at the time of the study. They normally sleep more than 6 hours at night. If this case has merit, then the study will yield erroneous result and the recommendation will be faulty. The argument will not hold water at all.
Finally, the author prematurely assumes that the conditions of other advertizing firms are very similar to the Mentian advertizing firm except the sleeping habit of the executives. However, this may not hold true. It is quite possible that Mentian advertizing firm has a good, innovative, foresighted higher authority who takes correct decision at correct time. They are very cautious and do their best to achieve a high profit and fast growth. The argument fails to consider this case and so is seriously weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands, is seriously flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions which may be proven to be invalid. If the author is able to provide more evidences and conduct a more careful study, then the argument can be evaluated properly and recommend to hire employees who sleep less than 6 hours at night otherwise it will remain seriously weakened as it is on surface.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2038 1500
No. of Different Words: 175 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.784 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.642 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.3 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.743 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2096.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92018779343 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71305857154 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.441314553991 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 658.8 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.3098748249 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.8 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.45 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.175877043667 0.218282227539 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.055646950404 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0617967963582 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.103440060737 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0546039716214 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.75 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.