The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company.
"Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee — a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. Clearly, to improve productivity, Acme should require all of our employees to take the Easy Read course."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the advice and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the advice.
The personnel director recommends that all of the employees need to take the Speed-Reading course to improve the productivity of the employees. The support presented in favour of this recommendation is that by increasing the reading speed employees will be able to absorb more information thereby becoming more productive. The author also provides several examples that illustrate how this course proved to be an advantage. However the evidences provided are incomplete and the recommendation cannot be implemented until the following questions are answered.
The personnel director recommends that all of the employees need to take the Speed-Reading course to improve the productivity of the employees. The support presented in favour of this recommendation is that by increasing the reading speed employees will be able to absorb more information thereby becoming more productive. The author also provides several examples that illustrate how this course proved to be an advantage. However the evidences provided are incomplete and the recommendation cannot be implemented until the following questions are answered.
First major question is, "Is reading a part of the employees daily task or are there other methods of information gain available?". The director makes a major assumption that reading is the only source of information gathering available to the employees. It maybe entirely possible that employees use other, perhaps more intuitive sources like graphs, audio, video, etc. to gain information. In fact, most modern companies prefer these forms of information portrayal, because of their superior efficiency that exceeds reading quicker speeds. If they consume more information in form of these alternative sources more than they consume text based information then the recommendation does not hold water at all because then, there is no point in reading quicker, if there is little to no reading.
Secondly the author mentions the examples of "other companies" that were successful in increasing productivity as a result of this course. But this raises another question, "Are the companies used to exemplify the success of the reading course comparable to this company?". There could be a number of factors at play that determined the success of the course at those companies and if these factors do not, at least loosely, match with this company's then these examples are invalidated which weakens the argument. For example, it could be the case that the companies stated are large corporate banks and the current company in question is an advertising agency. It does make sense that the reading course may help banks but companies advertising agencies are more about creativity rather than productvity. Hence, the similarity of these companies needs to be ensured.
Lastly, the author does tell that it is obvious that faster reading is tantamount to faster absorption of information, but is it? Just by reading a text quickly one may miss all the little intricacies involved and hence, miss information, rather than absorb it. Therefore in conclusion, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before the recommendation can be implemented.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 495 350
No. of Characters: 2625 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.717 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.303 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.943 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 201 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 162 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 116 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.146 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 40, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
The personnel director recommends that all of the employees need to take the Speed-Readin...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 324, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ation thereby becoming more productive. The author also provides several examples t...
^^^
Line 1, column 425, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
... this course proved to be an advantage. However the evidences provided are incomplete a...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 40, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
... The personnel director recommends that all of the employees need to take the Speed-Readin...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 324, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ation thereby becoming more productive. The author also provides several examples t...
^^^
Line 5, column 425, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
... this course proved to be an advantage. However the evidences provided are incomplete a...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 263, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...iss information, rather than absorb it. Therefore in conclusion, there are a lot of quest...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, at least, for example, in conclusion, in fact, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => 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: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2727.0 2260.96107784 121% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.50909090909 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.10782063955 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.426262626263 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 852.3 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9518516196 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.565217391 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5217391304 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.4347826087 5.70786347227 113% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.247610624659 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0885323526417 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0970796102669 0.0701772020484 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1568772337 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0660438692338 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.68 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.