The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument
The argument states that the best way to increase circulation of The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of its competitor's. The argument comes to the conclusion by citing The Bugle, a lower-priced newspapaer as the reason for the decrease in The Mercury's circulation. In doing so, the argument makes numerous assumptions which need more evidence to be evaluated. In absence of the aforementioned evidence, the argument is weak and vulnerable to attack on various fronts.
Firstly, the inception of The Bugle has been mentioned to be causation of decline in The Mercury's circulation. However no further evidence has been provided for this assumption. The two events might have been statistically correlated without one causing the other. For example, if the quality of The Mercury's publication declined around the time when The Bugle was started, the two events, while being mutually exclusive, would have occured in the same time frame. On the contrary, it is possible that the quality of The Mercury declined because all good employees of The Mercury started working for The bugle. In both the cases, reducing the price will not be enough to increase the circulation.
Secondly, the argument assumes that The Mercury will be able to increase the circulation by decreasing prices. However no evidence of that has been provided. In addition to decrease in quality, if the content of The Mercury has changed over the five years to drive readers away, decreasing prices is unlikely to increase the circulation. Without further information on the reason for the decreased circulation, this is a potentially fatal assumption.
Thirdly, the argument assumes that the decrease in the prices, when temporary will provide permanant increase in circulation. If The Bugle, or any other competitor has increased circulation because of lower prices, then the prices for The Mercury might have to remain lower permanently for increased circulation over long term. Hence, this is a flawed assumption.
In conclusion, unless the argument provides more evidence on various assumption it makes and resolves some of the critical issues on how the argument came to the conclusion, it will remain weak.
- “In a recent citywide poll, fifteen percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city’s art 55
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- The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city s council on the arts In a recent citywide poll 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago Dur 73
- The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city s council on the arts In a recent citywide poll 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago Dur 73
- The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best w 77
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1799 1500
No. of Different Words: 156 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.125 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.814 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.647 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.381 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 112, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...of decline in The Mercurys circulation. However no further evidence has been provided f...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 112, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...e the circulation by decreasing prices. However no evidence of that has been provided. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 103, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...arious assumption it makes and resolves some of the critical issues on how the argument cam...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 21, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... conclusion, it will remain weak.
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, while, for example, in addition, in conclusion, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 33.0 16.3942115768 201% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1864.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 351.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31054131054 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32839392791 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90554993702 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 164.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.467236467236 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 594.9 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.3863374758 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.555555556 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.94444444444 5.70786347227 139% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.13005131943 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0428121632464 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0470518457128 0.0701772020484 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0746747381813 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0295439429197 0.0628817314937 47% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.52 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.