The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of Butler Manufacturing.
"During the past year, workers at Butler Manufacturing reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. A recent government study reports that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. If we shorten each of our work shifts by one hour, we can improve Butler Manufacturing's safety record by ensuring that our employees are adequately rested."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the memo from the vice president of Butler Manufacturing, he concludes that the increased on-the-job accidents are due to the workers' lack of sleep and recommends lessening one work hour to improve the safety record of Butler Manufacturing. The author came to this conclusion based on the evidence that a strong correlation exists between the Panoply industry's fewer work-hour and fewer on-the-job accidents record. However, the author supports his argument with three assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.

First of all, The author presumes that Butler manufacturing belongs to Panoply industries. Perhaps Butler Manufacturing is from a different industry in which workers need to do a lot of riskier tasks than that of Panoply industries. For this reason, on-the-job accidents are comparatively higher at Butler Manufacturing. even if Butler manufacturing belongs to the Panoply industries, accidents may be higher in Butler manufacturing due to workers not getting proper training than that in Panoply industries. If either of the scenarios is true, then the author's assertion does not hold water.
Second of all, the author claims that if Butler Manufacturing decreases work shifts by one hour, it would increase the sleep time of the workers. It may not necessarily be the case. For instance, the additional one hour can be used to do something else than sleeping. Maybe workers use that time to hang out, chill, and enjoy themselves with family. Even if they use that time to sleep it is possible that accidents still happen because it might be the case that workers feel too lazy in the workplace, and it might stir up on-the-job accidents. So, If either case is true, then the author's claim is not warranted.

Finally, the author assumes that the past year's data is enough to conclude that lack of fatigue and sleep is responsible for on-the-job accidents. It might be possible that last year's study is not representing this year. Perhaps the Panoply industry's work type was not more dangerous in the previous year than that of Butler Manufacturing. It is also possible that this year Butler Manufacturing provides adequate training to its workers to decrease accidents and consequently, it brings down the number of accidents in the workplace. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.

In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author can provide the three pieces of evidence stated above and perhaps conduct a systematic research study, then it will be possible to determine whether the author's assertion on persuadable or not.