Argument32~~~

CynthiaYing

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.


485/20=24.25
In this memo, the vice president of Quiot Manufacturing suggest their company to shorten each of their threes work shifts by one hour, leaving employees adequate amounts of sleep, so that to reduce the number of on-the–job accidents at Quiot and thereby increase productivity.To strengthen this conclusion, he cites the nearby Panoply Industries plant had a 30 percent less on-the-job accidents, due to one-hour shorter shifts, comparing with Quiot Manufactuting.He also quote experts words that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the–job accidents.Seemly reasonable as he ratiocinates, though, hiding fallacies are still obvious to be found.
The vice president uses the data of 30 percent more accidents than at the nearby plant to boost the shift time does account a lot for on-the-job accidents.However, without the accurate number of accidents, the percentage may somewhat misguide our judgement.As illustrated, if the total accidents of Panoply Industries plant last year is three or four, ours would be one more accidents, which differs not that much.In that case, I doubt that the use of percentage might be deliberately designed, baffling us to believe the immense improvement of preventing on-the-job accidents by curtail working time.
Furthermore, is this analogy appropriate is worth questioning.Knowing no specific information with the two plants, we cannot rule out other likelihood, contributing to this discrepancy, for example, the diverse features of two industries.We cannot exclude the probability that the industry of Quiot Manufacturing naturally be more dangerous and has a higher rate of accidents than that of Panoply Industries plant.Besides, by comparision with only one manufacture can hardly find the optimal time to cut down.That is the vice president has to provide more detailed materials of working-time and numbers of on-the-job accidents of far more the same industry plants.
Even if we ignore the above circumstances, I still cast doubt on the feasibility of the vice president’s willingness, for a three work shifts usually be regard as a standard turn, and allows enough sleeping time, indeed.So weather workers will utilize the redundant one hour to sleep cannot be ascertained.Besides, even a depressed amount of accidents could not guarantee the increasing productivity, since both precision rate and working time attribute to elevate the productivity.Thus, may the shorter time of working and reduced on-the-job accidents act reciprocally, and finally give rise to an unaltered output, or even less.
To wrap up, this author’s rational analysis remains limited so that hardly earns my endorsement to his conclusion that Quiot Manufacturing should curtail one hour of their employees’ shift time.In order to let that inference to be thorough or compelling enough for creditability, he would necessarily convey more concrete evidence to rule out all the above-mentioned possibilities.Otherwise, the arguer would have to better censoring all the various angles and factors involved before his last analysis.

CynthiaYing

可能阐述的时候有些问题，其实本来想第二段表明数字不能说明问题，第三段说两个公司没有可比性。不过的确忽略了专家意见的问题。thax~

ppguo

第二段和第三段在讲一个问题，可以合并。
专家的论据没有提到：可以说专家的调查是very general, 不一定适用于该公司。事故发生还有可能是员工没有得到足够的技术培训，或者是安全意识不够。