The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The argument claims that reducing operating expenses and operating hours would lead to improvement of profits. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
First the argument readily assumes that operating expenses is the reason for declining profits. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. There could be other reasons why profits are declining i.e low sales. There is no model or survey that leads us to draw a logical conclusion. The argument would have be more clearer if quantifiable/ comparative analysis was made to enable us get a clearer picture as to if really operating expenses is the cause of declining profits.
Secondly, the argument further assumes that reducing operating hours would in turn reduce operating expenses which then increases profitability. This is again a weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between reduction in operating hours and increased profitability. Although the writer gave a weak example of downtown Marston store, he still did not verify if truly reduction in operating hours lead to increased profitability of the store. I do understand the writer’s point of view that reducing operating hours would perhaps translate to low wages and low expenses. However operating expenses are made of numerous captions not just salaries and wages. If the argument had provided evidence of how reduction in operating hours increased profitability in the Marston store or the huge effect of salaries/wages in the company’s operating expenses then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, the author uses customer complaints as a baseline for introduction of these new policies. Is this a good baseline for implementing strategies? Is the sample size of customer’s representative enough? Perhaps there customers consist of the older generation who still uses DVD as opposed to the younger generation. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- need to argue 'Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices.'
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits.
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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: 22 15
No. of Words: 394 350
No. of Characters: 2055 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.455 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.216 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.928 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.909 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.873 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 324, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'been'.
Suggestion: been
...cal conclusion. The argument would have be more clearer if quantifiable/ comparati...
^^
Line 2, column 327, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'clearer' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: clearer
... conclusion. The argument would have be more clearer if quantifiable/ comparative analysis w...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, really, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, as to, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2114.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 392.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.39285714286 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44960558625 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.1055255333 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502551020408 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 673.2 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.6822132564 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.0909090909 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8181818182 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.0991432025892 0.218282227539 45% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0323649997239 0.0743258471296 44% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0377699079058 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0493620652047 0.128457276422 38% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0333501468414 0.0628817314937 53% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 45.76 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.