求点评A32 shorter work shifts time reduce on-the-job accidents

lisa_CUID: 2678347

求帮忙批改ARGU……
第一篇，实在是惨不忍睹，定时的才写了一半，发上来的是补全的，求狠拍求意见，多谢！

Argument 32
32, The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing.
"During the past year, Quiot Manufacturing had 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than at the nearby Panoply Industries plant, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts say that significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents are fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity, we should shorten each of our three work shifts by one hour so that employees will get adequate amounts of sleep."
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.

练习

The author has a concern on the problem of on-the-job accidents in Quiot and argues that work shifts at Quiot should be shorten to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents. It's a good concern to find the solution for relatively high on-the-job accidents. But before we accept the author's idea, how about check the assumptions first?

The fundamental assumption in this argument is that if work shifts time is shorter, on-the-job accidents will be reduced. There are at least two problems in this assumption. The experts talks about the relationship of on-the-job accidents and fatigue and sleep deprivation, while the author discuss about that of on-the-job accidents and shorter work shifts time. Here comes the first problem, longer work shifts time does not equal to fatigue and sleep deprivation. Even Quiot's work shifts time is longer, the workers there may not be lack of sleep. Second, the experts' words which supports this assumption may not be reliable. The experts' conclusion may result from some research which is not valid. For example, the sample they chose may not have been representative of workers in Quiot Manufacturing, observing workers who mainly use their brain to work. Another possibility is that the experts' words cited by the author may be out of date, if coming from some decades years ago paper. Since the author doesn't offer the detail about who are the experts, how the experts get this conclusion and whether Quiot's workers sleep enough or not, the fundamental assumption is not effectively backed.

Additionally, the author's analysis starts from the comparison between Quiot Manufacturing and Panoply Industries. An implied assumption in this comparison is that Quiot Manufacturing and Panoply Industries are similar other than work shifts time. However, we have no available information about their fundamental information like working environment, size and managers. They may differ in other sides. For instance, the managers of Panoply Industries may have concerned more about workers safety and devoted more money to offer safety training for workers. Or they may locate in different areas, the weather in Panoply's area is more comfortable. In that case, work shifts time may not be the main contribution to lower on-the-job accidents. Without offering the implied assumption mentioned above, the author's argument that Panoply Industries' shorter work shifts time and lower on-the-job accidents doesn't strongly support the author's argument.

Another even stronger implied assumption in this argument is that Panoply's current work shifts time strategy, exactly the same, is also a good choice for Quiot. Assume it's true that shorter work shifts time leads to lower on-the-job accidents for Quiot, the author could not directly copy Panoply's strategy, shorter one hour for each work shift time, to Quiot. Assume Panoply's current work shifts time is 7 hours, Quiot's best choice might be 6.5 hours instead of 7 hour.

As mentioned above, it would cause problem if the author just simply take all the implications for granted without further consideration. It’s better for the author to expand his/her discussion with stronger support in assumption.

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懒得哥UID: 3520933

改了一下下，
我也是新手但愿楼主不要对我太无语