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 argument proposes that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night. The reasoning for this recommendation includes a recent study of 300 male and female, Mentian advertising executives. This study is provided as evidence to the claim that there is a close association between the average number of sleep per night required by employees and the success of their firms. Stated in this way, the argument depends on a number of unsubstantiated assumptions that need to be evaluated before accepting the recommendation.
First, the number of employees varies greatly in various industries, as well as organizations within a given industry. The study presented as evidence examined the sleep hours of only 300 males and females which may be adequate to give an overall picture for some organizations, but can be a very small number for multi-national companies. The evidence is required that supports this small number of people under study is good enough. In addition to that, no information is provided on the duration for which the said study examined the sleep patterns of the employees. Is it long enough to come to any conclusion? If not, it seriously undermines the merits of this study.
Second, the argument states that the average number of hours the employees sleep indicates a close relationship between the amount of sleep required and the growth of the firm. It is entirely possible that as much as 50% of the people under study required a number of sleep hours greater than 6, while others were below 6, making an average of 6. If true, this will undermine the recommendation that only the people who require sleep hours less than 6 should be hired.
Third, the article overlooks the varied needs of different industries. In order to prove the generalization that there is an association between the sleep hours of employees and the growth of any firm, the study presented must include equal proportions of people from various organizations from different industries. Not only that but also the group was taken from each organization must be a representative set of that firm as a whole, then only one can draw the conclusion as given in the argument.
In sum, the argument is flawed in absence of the above-mentioned evidence, and therefore
unconvincing. To further bolster the argument the author must provide evidence for all the critical assumptions: (1) a small number of people (300 males and females) is a good representative sample, and the duration of the study, (2) an explanation for the average number of study in the reasoning and strict upper bound in the recommendation, and (3) the given recommendation holds true for any given industry.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2220 1500
No. of Different Words: 190 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.868 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.933 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.437 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 10, column 116, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
...nce for all the critical assumptions: 1 a small number of people 300 males and females is a good ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, look, may, second, so, then, therefore, third, well, while, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2278.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 456.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99561403509 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9982168703 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.44298245614 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 709.2 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.9290790272 57.8364921388 135% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.555555556 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.3333333333 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.83333333333 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.294441099844 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.09243643341 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0779720231381 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.146283009237 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0875085166335 0.0628817314937 139% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.96 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => 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.