The following is a memo from the marketing director of Lamfonz Pet Stores, which operates thirty pet stores worldwide.
“Five years ago, our competitor Fish Emporium started advertising in Exotic Pets Monthly magazine. Their sales overall have seen a steady increase of 3-to-5 percent per year since then. In fact, the Fish Emporium store in Gulf City saw even more remarkable gains, becoming the most visited pet store in the United States last year. Meanwhile, our two Lamfonz stores in Gulf City have seen sales steadily decline during the same period. It seems clear that we should immediately begin placing our own ads in Exotic Pets Monthly and other popular pet magazines. If we do so, we will be sure to reverse this recent trend of declining sales and start making a profit again.”
The marketing director of Lamfonz Pet Stores is concerned with their recent trend of declining sales, so he uses their competitor's experience in advertising to recommend how to compensate their loss and start making profit. To justify his claim, the author makes some unwarranted assumptions that are due the lack of concrete evidenc ehich render the argument fallacious. The marketing director of Lamfonz Pet Stores should consider examining further pieces of evidence.
First of all, the author mentions that their competitor used advertisement in Exotic Pets Magazine, five years ago. Do they still have advertisement in that magazine? There is no evidence in the argument that shows that Fish Emporium has continued advertsing in Exotic Pets Magazine. It's possible that they have used other source of advertising rather than popular magazines, such as urban bilboards. The author should examine further evidence about the recent method of advertising used by their cometitor. If they have changed their advertising methods, then the argument won't hold water.
Moreover, the author should consider examining other factors that might play roles in their competitor's success. It's possible that their competitor's quality of products are better than theirs. People won't continue buying a product if they are not satisfied by it. Therefore, the author should conduct a study to examine deeper the main reason for their competitor's triumph in attracting customers. If there are other reason than just advertising in popular magazines, then the recommendation of using advertiements in popular magazines won't help Lamfonz to start make profit. Also, the Fish Emprium store in Gulf City is becoming the most visited pet store in America, last year. There is no evidence in the argument that proves that advertisement in famous magazines was reponsible for this fact. Likewise, more visitors is equal to more sales? The author fails to provide evidence about the correlation between the most visited pet store and higher sales. Perhaps, Fish Emporioum stores in Gulf City did not have higher sales than Lamfonz stores in Gulf City and just have higher visitors.
Finally, the author should use a strongly employed survey to ask people's opinion about Lamfonz products' quality? If their products are not as qualified as their competitor's, then by just advertisments they cannot revers their declining sales. They should first work on their products to improve their qualities and then they can revers the declining sales.
All in all, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed due to the lack of sufficient evidence. Therefore, the author should consider examining other evidence to be able to write a more convincing argument with strong recommendation that could help their stores to revers their declining sales and start making profits.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 450 350
No. of Characters: 2356 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.606 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.236 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.642 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.411 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.049 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, if, likewise, moreover, so, still, then, therefore, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2398.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 447.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36465324385 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59808378696 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6850558833 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463087248322 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 742.5 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.4542032666 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.9166666667 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.625 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95833333333 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.295289911772 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0931350473001 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0808436136507 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17530758416 0.128457276422 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0855334236259 0.0628817314937 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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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.