following appeared in an editorial in a business magazine.
"Although the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years, a recent survey of video-game players suggests that this sales trend is about to be reversed. The survey asked video-game players what features they thought were most important in a video game. According to the survey, players prefer games that provide lifelike graphics, which require the most up-to-date computers. Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people ten to twenty-five years old, the age-group most likely to play video games. It follows, then, that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months."
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.
The author of the presented argument contends that the sales of Whirlwind video games is likely to increase in the next few months due to a recent survey that allowed the company to make new games with the graphics that their supposed audience wants. The author comes to this conclusion by using an extremely flawed argument. Although the increase in graphics and the change in advertisement may help the company increase sales, the author's use of vague terms, lack of evidence and vast assumptions makes the conclusion impossible to validate.
To begin, the author of the argument claims the conclusion on a survey that is far too vague. This survey is the grounding for the authors main argument which proclaims that higher graphics are what video game players want and therefore once the company Whirlwind sells such games, the sales will dramatically increase. The concern with using this survey as the base for the argument is that there is no sample size explained, no age group defined, and no discussion of the timing of the survey. What if the survey was completed 10 years ago, before there was a decline in sales for Whirlwind. Additionally, the survey could have been completed by people who are not in the age group that the company will now start to advertise to, which they state is the age group of 10-25. The author needs to complete a new survey that uses an appropriate sample size, a representative group and needs to define terms with detail in order to use it in this argument as proof of the conclusion.
Additionally, the argument propounds that if the company focuses its new sales on the age group of 10--25, which is the age group that is most likely to play video games, then the sales will increase. This statement is an assumption that rests on no validity. The author does not state how this conclusion was discovered; was there an additional survey to find out the approproate age group? was the survey representative? With this statement disproved, the aurhor's conclusion appears again weak and flawed. The author should provide the reader with the proof for this assumption in order to strengthen the argument.
The author uses another assumption to back up the argument when assuming that the decline in sales in the past two years is due to the company Whirlwind. There are many more factors to consider and that need be addressed by the author to make this claim vaild. For example, what if in the past two years there has been an economic crash and unemployment rates are high? This could cause a decrease in sales for all non-necessary items. Also, what are the prices of the video games? Additionally, what if the videogames sold by Whirlwind have a higher price than other videogame companies and that is the cause of the decline in sales in the past two years. The author needs to define the terms used when it comes sales and provide the reader with specific numbers to prove the conclusion to be valid.
The author makes a fair attempt to argue that due to the survey presented, the company Whirlwind can make changes appropriate to increase sales. The last problem with this statement is that the author is predicting the future, which makes for a poor argument. What if these changes are made and sales do not go up because there is a competing company who sells the same games for half the price?
In conclusion, the author should address the flaws in their argument and correct them by adding defined terms, thorough surveys with representative sample sizes, and addressing all the alternative possibilities as to why the company has had a decrease in sales over the past two years. If completed, the author can have a strong argument with a conclusion that is easily validated.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 646 350
No. of Characters: 3026 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.041 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.684 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.521 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 187 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.846 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.35 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.385 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.522 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 612, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n sales for Whirlwind. Additionally, the survey could have been completed by peop...
^^
Line 9, column 393, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Was
... to find out the approproate age group? was the survey representative? With this st...
^^^
Line 17, column 146, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... changes appropriate to increase sales. The last problem with this statement is tha...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, if, may, so, then, therefore, as to, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3110.0 2260.96107784 138% => OK
No of words: 645.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.82170542636 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.03952876749 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59637203951 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.387596899225 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 960.3 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 20.0 8.76447105788 228% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.5879870633 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.185185185 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8888888889 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.55555555556 5.70786347227 45% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.271507201275 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0878258333575 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0536107580369 0.0701772020484 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.158683996041 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.049336358801 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.49 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.