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 a

The author of the above argument proposes that Acme publishing company should mandate all its employees to take part in the Easy Read Speed- Reading course, in order to increase productivity. The notion upon which the author seems to base his argument is that faster reading speed can lead to faster accumulation of knowledge. Whether this assumption of the author is correct or not is unclear since the argument is rife with several instances of poor reasoning and unstated assumptions which only serves to lower its overall cogency.

To explore the inadequacies prevalent throughout the argument, consider the statement where the author claims how several companies have acknowledged the benefits that they have garnered by having their employees partake in the Speed- Reading course in question. However, the author provides no factual data to properly support this claim. The example of the two graduates provided may be the exceptional students of the course. It is very much possible that although some companies have claimed to benefit from the course, many others might have complained about its futility. Without proper evidence to shed some light on this, the conclusion that the author derives sounds a little far- fetched.

The next mistake that the author makes is when he states decisively that increasing the speed of reading will undoubtedly increase the rate of information absorption. No evidence, however has been provided to back up this statement. The example of the graduate who supposedly was able to complete reading a 500- page report in two hours, is a rather vague one, since it may so happen that when the employee in question is quizzed on the intricacies of report, he might perform poorly. In fact studies may show that faster reading technique simply teaches an individual on how to skip certain superfluous descriptions and grasp the main points of the report. Such an individual will therefore tend to only skim through the report, incorporating only the major points and thus will not absorb greater amount of information. If however, Acme's job necessitates its employees for a detailed study of the reports, speed- reading will not be of much help to them.

Finally, coming to the cost of such a course, the fee $500 quoted per employee is a negligible one, going by the author's opinion. However whether the cost is meagre or not depends on a number of factors. For example, the employees in question may draw a $1000 salary per month. If the duration of the course is of two weeks then the prospect of shelling out $500 for it, is not something that would amount to being cost effective. Furthermore, the employee would also have to take leave to attend the three- week long seminar, which might result in huge losses for the company.

Thus, in conclusion, it may be inferred that the author's argument in its current form, is unconvincing at best. Some of the pertinent questions raised above needs to be answered and the claims of the author requires proper support in the form of incontrovertible evidences in order to correctly judge whether the author's recommendation of requiring every employee in Acme publishing to take up the Easy Read course is tenable or not.