The following appeared in a memo to the board ofdirectors ofBargain Brand Cereals.
“One year ago we introduced our first productBargain Brand breakfast cereal.Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies.Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue making a profitGiven our success in selling cereal we recommend that Bargain Brand now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible.
The director of Bargain Brand Cereals uses not numbers but ambiguous words to try to persuade the company to keep their low-price strategy and even expand the scale and insist on marketing other kinds of products with such strategy. While his argument's logic and deduction ostensibly seems to be plausible, some tiny ambiguities within his argument still can weaken his argument in general.
Firstly, by presenting their low prices drew many customers from the top-selling cereals, he assumes that their low-price strategy reaches two goals: making profits and hurting opponents. Pricing is a strategy widely used in marketing, by introducing lower prices, presumably could help Bargain Brand Cereal to attract more consumers, and it already did. But does it bring profit? When the cost of material and human resources surmounts the profit consisting of lower prices, it needs amount of consumers to complete its strategy. But the speaker does not present any information about it, so what we know is only that such strategy helps attracting some consumers, which is another variable cannot be defined. And, even though such strategy drew consumers from top company, it does not mean a big attack on the top company, which is already contains a big part of loyal consumer in society.
Secondly, as the speaker said, although the top company also react to fight back by reducing prices, they still have no need to increase their price. Here, the logic underlying is confusing, if top companies start to reduce prices too, it means the most important advantage--lower prices--is gradually diminishing. Thus the director should consider how to defend their advantage or hack another specific advantage, instead of eliminating the possibility of increase of prices.
Finally, in the last, a conclusion that given the successful investment they did so they should expand the scale and begin marketing other products, is suggested by the director. Even pretending all the arguments said by the speaker is right, it is unreasonable to expand their business and to begin new products. Because consumer drew from top companies are still a small part, for example, one percent of consumers having a basic number of one thousand is ten persons. If there is only one shop, you may find ten persons a not bad number, but if you own a chain store, such feeling will be gone. Therefore, without sufficient information and data, it is difficult to predict whether an expansion is a lucrative idea, much less begin new product research, which contains more vagaries.
In sum, the author's argument seemingly seems to be convincing, but when turn to another angle especially in specific statistical numbers, some drawbacks show up. To strengthen the original idea, it is beneficial and necessary to cite more objective statistics.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 457 350
No. of Characters: 2296 1500
No. of Different Words: 252 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.624 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.024 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.62 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 141 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.783 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 640, Rule ID: ADVISE_VBG[5]
Message: The verb 'help' is used with infinitive: 'to attract' or 'attract'.
Suggestion: to attract; attract
...e know is only that such strategy helps attracting some consumers, which is another variab...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 316, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...lower prices--is gradually diminishing. Thus the director should consider how to def...
^^^^
Line 9, column 13, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... contains more vagaries. In sum, the authors argument seemingly seems to be convinci...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, while, for example, in general
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2373.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21538461538 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74907719639 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.58021978022 0.468620217663 124% => OK
syllable_count: 722.7 705.55239521 102% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.8688428309 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.833333333 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2777777778 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.05555555556 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.151938988619 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0424199397047 0.0743258471296 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0557059376246 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0711690451702 0.128457276422 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492448177464 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.28 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.