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.
while it may be reasonable forAcme to require all of its employees to take the Easy Read course, thisauthor's argument does not answer several important questions, and thus, notstrong enough to persuade the president to takethe advice.
Although many other companies claimed thatproductivity has greatly been improved by having their employees take thecourse, the relationship between improvement of productivity and the course isnot effectively made. Does being able to read a 500-page report in only twohours mean improvement of productivity? Does the promotion of the graduate isthe result of taking the course? If these answers are no, it is not clear thatimprovement of productivity is relevant to the Easy Read course and the author'sargument is not reasonable. The author did argue that employees can absorb moreinformation by faster reading, however, does absorbing more information meanthe higher productivity? It is still unclear and insufficient for the author tosupport his/her argument. What's more, in this argument the author only citedtwo successful cases, However, what about other graduates? Do all or most ofthe graduates benefit from the course and finally improve their productivity? Wejust do not know. If there are only three or four graduates among a hundredemployees achieve success, it shows the course is not very useful and theauthor's advice is absurd.
Additionally, the author argued that $500 peremployee including a three-week seminar and a lifelong subscription was a smallprice. However, does the company need to pay any other fees for its employeesto take the course, for example, the fees for eating and accommodation? It maybe not a small price when you consider all the potential fees for an employees.Even $500 includes all the fees, does the Acme allow employees to be absent forthree-week to take the course ? Three-week is a long time and the company maysuffer a great loss. If the loss is too large for the company to bear, theauthor's advice is obviously unreasonable and should not be adopted.
Last, the author suggests all employees to take theEasy Reading course. However, does all of the employees need to take the courseto improve their reading ability? Some employees like secretaries oradministrators may need a high reading ability, but it may be not necessarilyfor other employees such as cleaners or drivers. So if the answer to thequestion is no, it is unnecessary to require all of employees to take thecourse.
Inconclusion, this argument is unconvincing enough to persuade the president to take the advice. WhetherAcme should demand the employees to participate the Easy Read course or not, toa great extent, depend on the answers to the questions above.
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发表于 2013-4-24 13:20:36
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