The following appeared as part of an article in a business magazine.

"A recent study rating 300 male and female Mentian advertising executives according to the average number of hours they sleep per night showed an association between the amount of sleep the executives need and the success of their firms. Of the advertising firms studied, those whose executives reported needing no more than 6 hours of sleep per night had higher profit margins and faster growth. These results suggest that if a business wants to prosper, it should hire only people who need less than 6 hours of sleep per night." 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. Questions: How to begin the introduction? The article above mentions a study about the amount of sleep that advertising executives get and its relationship to the prosperity and profitability of firms. It suggests that a business is likely to prosper if employees are inured to sleep less than six hours per night. However, the argument fails to refer to cogent evidences. There are not enough references to the study. The only information available is that three hundred people from Mentia were rated and it is assumed that they are representative of the entire business world. The article mentions that studied firms with employees sleeping less than six hours have higher profits and faster growth but the number of firms studied is overlooked; it could be two or two hundred firms which makes the study inconclusive. In order to present a convincing conclusion about business success and firms profits, sample groups need to be larger and it is necessary to show more references that back them up Although the article conclusion is based on an interpretation of the results, the study has a lack of evidence and there is nothing that supports its claims. Three hundred male and female advertising executives from Mentia were rated but the conclusion includes any type of business and employees in general. That number of executives might be representative of a small group of business firm but surely they are not an effective sample for a bigger universe. It also failed to mention the conditions where the study was performed; we do not know how the rated people were selected and if they had to sleep that much for a specific situation. Secondly, as we previously pointed out, the number of firms studied was not mentioned and this is very relevant in order to prove the credibility of the study. We only know that they are advertising firms. For instance, if only two or three advertising firms are rated, the study cannot support a general conclusion about organizations profits and growth. But if a thousand companies from many types of markets were studied, the study could be conclusive and definitive and there would be no doubt about the way to make a business more prosperous. Finally, in order to make more convincing the conclusion which proves that a business should hire people who need only six or less hours of sleep per night, the article should present all the references and the study environment and not only mention the number of people and the type of firms which were rated. Additionally, the survey sample should be larger or the conclusion should be more specific because without knowing others variables we cannot suggest that all business have a behavior similar to that of advertising firms.