The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of the Juniper Cafe, a small, local coffee shop in the downtown area of a small American city:
“We must reduce overhead here at the cafe. Instead of opening at 6am weekdays, we will now open at 8am. On weekends, we will only be open from 9am until 4pm. The decrease in hours of operations will help save money because we won’t be paying for utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs during the hours we are closed. This is the best strategy for us to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to assess the reasonableness of both the prediction and the argument upon which it is based. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The author claims that reducing operating hours will help decrease operating costs of Juniper Cafe. The argument also asserts that this is the best strategy for Juniper Cafe to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs. While it may prove to be a worthy strategy, the argument appears to rely on assumptions that lack conclusive supporting evidence. The author would be well advised to address these concerns to make his argument and prediction more cogent and convincing.
First and foremost, the author assumes that reducing operating hours will have no impact on the profit of the business. Since the cafe can only bring in revenue during operating hours, we will need to assess how reducing operating hours would impact revenue stream. Specifically, the author would do well to provide a breakdown of revenue brought in by hour, as well as let us know the busiest times of operation for the cafe. Case in point, a lot of commuters stop by cafes in the morning to grab a cup of coffee or a bite of breakfast before going into work, which traditionally starts at 8am or 9am. As such, if the “commuter crowd” or “breakfast crowd” is a significant source of revenue for the business, not opening the cafe between 6am to 8am on weekdays might prove to be fatal for the cafe. On the other hand, if the cafe rarely sees any customers before 8am, it would be a sound business strategy. Thus, the owner of the cafe needs to provide more data before we can assess the reasonableness of his prediction and argument.
Furthermore, the author needs to clarify the breakdown on costs at the Juniper Cafe. While the author claims that decreasing hours of operations will help save money because they won’t be paying for operating costs such as utilities or employee wages, we need to see if this is significant enough in helping the business stay afloat. In most businesses, costs are categorized as fixed costs or variable costs. Since variable costs only increase while gross revenue increases (such as hiring an additional worker to meet the demands of additional customers), fixed costs are the true burden of a business. For example, regardless of the cafe’s operating hours, the owner still has to pay rent. As such, would decreasing the hours of operations truly help save money, or would it be detrimental to the business by not bringing in income when there are already very costly fixed overheads that need to be paid regardless of operating hours. Thus, if the author can truly show that the main causes of financial burden are in variable costs such as utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs, his strategy would be logical and would make a positive impact on the bottom line. However, if the main costs straining the business are identified as fixed costs, it is unlikely that his strategy would be impactful, and might even adversely impact the profitability of the business. Thus, more information is needed on the breakdown of Juniper Cafe’s costs before we can assess or suggest a viable and profitable business strategy.
Last but not least, there might be better and more effective alternatives that might help Juniper Cafe save money and remain in business that have not been evaluated. Such strategies include increasing the prices of products sold, or even laying off a single worker. For example, the problem of financial strain might be easily solved by increasing gross income, which can be solved by increasing the price of each product sold by $1 dollar. In another scenario, the author might realize that 2 workers can adequately man a shift instead of 3, and might be well justified in laying off the third person. As such, the owner of Juniper Cafe needs to provide us with alternatives and provide us with reasons as to why his current recommendation will work better than other business strategies. He can also look into case studies of similar business problems to see what solutions work and what solutions don’t. If all the choices were presented and reviewed, we can then assess whether this line of change is truly the best strategy for Juniper Cafe.
In conclusion, the issues raised here could easily be addressed by providing more evidence that backs up the author’s claims. By assembling sufficient and specific evidence to support the author’s questionable assumptions, the author may not be able to overcome the current limitations of his argument, but also provide a rationale to his idea beyond the terms offered.
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 707, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'decrease'
Suggestion: decrease
...r still has to pay rent. As such, would decreasing the hours of operations truly help save...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 431, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...easing the price of each product sold by dollar. In another scenario, the author ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, so, still, then, third, thus, well, while, as to, for example, in conclusion, such as, as well as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 35.0 12.9520958084 270% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 26.0 11.1786427146 233% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 98.0 55.5748502994 176% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3754.0 2260.96107784 166% => OK
No of words: 758.0 441.139720559 172% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.95250659631 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.24707535641 4.56307096286 115% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65183580502 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 321.0 204.123752495 157% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.423482849604 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1171.8 705.55239521 166% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 13.0 2.70958083832 480% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.4709465657 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.448275862 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1379310345 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.89655172414 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.145778473647 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0489658123178 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0486898978032 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0860989955157 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0614598750443 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 147.0 98.500998004 149% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 707, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'decrease'
Suggestion: decrease
...r still has to pay rent. As such, would decreasing the hours of operations truly help save...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 431, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...easing the price of each product sold by dollar. In another scenario, the author ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, so, still, then, third, thus, well, while, as to, for example, in conclusion, such as, as well as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 35.0 12.9520958084 270% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 26.0 11.1786427146 233% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 98.0 55.5748502994 176% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3754.0 2260.96107784 166% => OK
No of words: 758.0 441.139720559 172% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.95250659631 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.24707535641 4.56307096286 115% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65183580502 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 321.0 204.123752495 157% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.423482849604 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1171.8 705.55239521 166% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 13.0 2.70958083832 480% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.4709465657 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.448275862 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1379310345 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.89655172414 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.145778473647 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0489658123178 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0486898978032 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0860989955157 0.128457276422 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0614598750443 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 147.0 98.500998004 149% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.