The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
“In order to stop the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore’s ten movie-rental stores. Since we are famous for our special bargains, raising our rental prices is not a viable way to improve profits. Last month our store in downtown Masonton significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at6:00 P.M. rather than 9:00 P.M. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years ago. By
implementing similar changes in our other stores, Movies Galore can increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices.”
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
The speaker use a deduction which is based on the movie stores' characteristic and a comparison with other movie store locating in downtown, to state his argument that the only way to increase their profit is to reduce their operation expense by shortening operating time. The owner's assumptions underlying his argument and deduction is rife with holes, making his memorandum vulnerable in logic.
Firstly, he denies the possibility of increasing their rental prices, because he contends that their stores' special bargains are the obstacle, but here, there is no relation between bargain and higher prices, in that increasing prices does not mean that consumers' right of bargining is canceled. Speaking conversely, even if risng prices is prohibited, leaving less room for bargaining may be another way to increase profits indirectly. Thus, more evidence regarding bargaining and price increase should be cited.
Secondly, what is dicussiing now is that a store in downtown that reduced its openning time from 9 PM to 6PM is used to generalize one of the speaker's assumptions, that are even it redeced operating time, surprisingly increased profits. Here, the owner makes two mistakes. The one is that, there is no information informing us that the store undertaking those changes are actually making profits, although that is what the author's assumption. If previous purchase records show that in the evening, when is a time for most people to buy movies because people living in center are only having spare time in such a time. So if that is true, the profits may not be increased. And the second mistake, even the downtown store made profits, it is unreasonable to generalize the situation in the city center to assume that other stores in different places will have the same effect. One possibility that can challenge the speaker's assumption is that the main reason for the store to make money is higher-density population.
Thirdly, eliminating movies made in five years is also viewed as a useful change without the support of statistics. Movies are not like costumes, which could be obsolete with the time, movies are defendible to be challenged by time if itself is a good art. Thus, it is better convincing if the author to check if their consumers are hating old films.
To sum up, the owner of Mobies Galore has refuted a direct way to increase profits and falsely generalize a special phenomenon to other stores, both without enough data and evidence. To strengthen his argument, more researches should be conducted, holes in logic should be completed.
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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: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 422 350
No. of Characters: 2098 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.532 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.972 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.715 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.824 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.577 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.051 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 13, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'uses'.
Suggestion: uses
The speaker use a deduction which is based on the movie...
^^^
Line 5, column 424, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...king profits, although that is what the authors assumption. If previous purchase record...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 915, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'speakers'' or 'speaker's'?
Suggestion: speakers'; speaker's
... One possibility that can challenge the speakers assumption is that the main reason for ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 330, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
... the author to check if their consumers are hating old films. To sum up, the owner of ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, conversely, first, firstly, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2155.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 422.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10663507109 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53239876712 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78920018985 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.54028436019 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 687.6 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 70.22563733 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.764705882 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8235294118 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.52941176471 5.70786347227 132% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.206016242085 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0586409826422 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0563362281917 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.111578351877 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0596535077367 0.0628817314937 95% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.02 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.