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 relation between sleep hours and work efficiency is a topic widely debated. On one hand, studies dictate that sleeping a small amount of hours is better for your professional life. Another school of thought supports the idea that we need at least eight hours of sleep for our body and mind work appropriately. In the preceding article, the author claims that executives which need no more than six hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth inside advertising firms. Though his claim may well have merit, the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions. Regarding solely on the evidences the article offers, we cannot accept the argument as valid. Hence, its conclusion is weak and unconvincing, with several flaws.
The primary issue with the author’s reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The article cites the surveys of Mentian advertising executives as the basis of the argument that hours of sleep are directly related to to success of their firms. However, the scope and validity of the survey is at issue. The author does not give any indication as to the real reasons for which the surveys were conducted. For instance, the survey could have asked people that have extremes working hours. If someone works more than 16 hours a day, probably he/she will sleep less than six hours per day and his/her firm will be successful due to the exploration of its employees. Also, the sample may not be representative of the executives, asking only Mentian advertising executes. Unless the survey is truly representative, it cannot be used by the author to effectively back his statements. Therefore, the author’s premises lack any legitimate evidentiary support and thereby render his conclusion unacceptable.
In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. The author implies that people who sleep more than six hours are unsuccessful and will never make a business to prosper. However, the article fails to provide proof of the fact that many CEO’s such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs admittedly presented in their biographies that they had a normal life, sleeping more than eight hours per day as the majority of the society. The author wrongly assumes that companies should only hire who need less than six hours of sleep per night. This assumption may fail if they based the admission process evaluation the applicant’s skills and having a team that help to prosper the company instead of a bunch of random people which sleeps few hours per day. The author weakens his arguments by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between the hours of sleep and professional skills he assumes exists.
While the argument has key issues in the premises and assumptions, it is not to say that the entire argument is without a base. For example, the author could have done a real experiment hiring people with equal professional background but with a big discrepancy in hours of sleep and prove that the claim is true. He could also states how the working hours or other further parameters affects the employees hours of sleep and the company prosperity. Though there are several issues with the author’s reasoning at present, with research and clarification, he could improve his argument significantly.
In sum, the article’s illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. The author needs to revisit the research and analysis done for advertising executives and refine the suggestion proposed by him. If the author truly hopes to change the reader’s mind, he would have to largely restructure his arguments, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions and provide evidentiary support. Without these, his poorly reasoned argument is unlikely to convince many people.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 30 15
No. of Words: 634 350
No. of Characters: 3203 1500
No. of Different Words: 293 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.018 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.052 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.702 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 230 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.133 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.469 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.567 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.459 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 224, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: to
...hat hours of sleep are directly related to to success of their firms. However, the sc...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 329, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'could' requires the base form of the verb: 'state'
Suggestion: state
...e that the claim is true. He could also states how the working hours or other further ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, may, regarding, so, therefore, well, while, as to, at least, for example, for instance, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3308.0 2260.96107784 146% => OK
No of words: 632.0 441.139720559 143% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23417721519 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.01394158123 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88676984774 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 306.0 204.123752495 150% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48417721519 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 1010.7 705.55239521 143% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.0630310211 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.266666667 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0666666667 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.63333333333 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.136449378005 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0419020538532 0.0743258471296 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0447946170477 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0850401571623 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0444446974855 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 152.0 98.500998004 154% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.