The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors."Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat produc

The author's recommendation that the stockholders of Old Dairy Industries should sell their shares and to other investors not to purchase the stock is rife with assumptions. Careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that there is unwarranted and ill-defined evidence for the argument to hold.

The first question that needs to be answered here is the details of the survey conducted. It is not mentioned the number of people who participated in this survey. As per the claim of the survey 80% of respondents "indicate a desire" to reduce intake of fats and cholesterol. However, it does not mention the number of people participating in the survey. A survey of 10 people say, out of which 8 are already obese people can be highly skewed. Also, it must be evaluated the questions asked to the people participating in the survey. Are the people actually aware of the fat and cholesterol quantities in the products they use for daily consumption?

Also, the survey also does not reveal the fact that people who "indicate such desires" are actually consumers of the products by Old Dairy Industries. It is possible that they may be using products of a major competitor or not using any fat-based products at all. Even if a lot of people indicate such desires, it is unlikely that a lot of people would change their eating habits rapidly. For instance, a lot of people around new year's "indicate a desire" to go to a gym and lose weight but such resolutions are ephemeral. So, the time when the survey was conducted and the specific people involved has to be taken into account.

Another question that needs to be evaluated is based on the assumption that company profits will decrease. In the argument, there is no mention of the fact about the consumption of Old Dairy Industries products and their percentage of profits. It is possible that the fat-based products constitute only a tiny fraction of the company's revenue. It also does not point out how much of these products are bought for direct consumption and how much is used in other food companies as intermediate products. Therefore, it cannot be stated that the profits of the company will "diminish greatly".

Another possibility is the low-fat products available in food stores marketed by Old Dairy Industries. In such a scenario, it is possible that customers stop using high-fat products and move to low-fat products of the company without any revenue loss.

Based on the little evidence provided by the author's argument this more seems of ploy by a major competitor to degrade Old Dairy Industries value. Finally, to assess the argument it would be necessary to know more information about the current profits and market share of Old Dairy Industries products and how many of its current customers will stop using those products. Do the company already have newer low-fat products?. Does the company plan to launch other products in the future ?. The author's conclusion does not hold after a more careful analysis of the assumptions.

Votes
Average: 7.7 (3 votes)
Essay Categories
Essays by the user:

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
The authors recommendation that the stockholders of...
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...involved has to be taken into account. Another question that needs to be evalua...
^^^
Line 11, column 46, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... on the little evidence provided by the authors argument this more seems of ploy by a m...
^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 494, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...nch other products in the future ?. The authors conclusion does not hold after a more c...
^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, so, therefore, as to, for instance

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2543.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 505.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03564356436 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74048574033 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92829428762 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443564356436 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 802.8 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 37.2416743406 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.8076923077 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4230769231 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.42307692308 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 14.0 4.67664670659 299% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.169351165344 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0566659155517 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0767890553885 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0913711671772 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0595441380259 0.0628817314937 95% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.95 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.96 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?

---------------------

Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.

argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK
----------------

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 505 350
No. of Characters: 2440 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.74 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.832 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.681 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.423 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.228 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.462 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5