The following appeared in a memo from the business manager of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States. "For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, all of the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among it subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
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 business manager of a chain of cheese stores spread across the United States recommends in a memo that it would be a profitable move to stop stocking of most imported cheese varieties and focus on domestic cheeses primarily in all the stores. The manager supports this argument by citing a survey and some sales data, which, on the surface, seem reasonable. However, on closer inspection, it is easy to see that the argument is hasty and may have adverse effects.
To begin, the manager puts forth sales data from the newest store in the chain, which shows that all the five best-sellers at this store were domestic cheddar cheeses sourced from Wisconsin. The manager fails to mention, however, the location and the customer demographic of this store. For example, it is possible that the store is located in Wisconsin itself, or at least close to it. If the cheese-lovers of the locality are born and brought up on Wisconsin cheddar cheeses, they will obviously be the most popular cheeses at the new store. But this sales data cannot be extrapolated to all the stores located across the US, keeping in mind that one size does not fit all. It is quite possible, for example, that customers in other regions such as California, have never come across Wisconsin cheeses and have different favorites. The manager would do well to consolidate sales data from more than the one store, in order for the argument to hold water.
Subsequently, the manager cites a magazine survey to illustrate that there is a rising affinity for domestic cheese varieties over imported ones. However, there is a critical thread missing from this reasoning. It is not mentioned whether the magazine's subscribers are the same people who buy cheese from the chain of cheese stores in question, or at least representative of them. There is no mention, really, about who the responders of the survey are. Are they a big enough sample size? Do they represent all or most of the cheese consumers across the US? Are they even from the US? How long ago was the survey conducted? The manager assumes that the survey results apply to the chain's customers. However, if it is not so, then building a business strategy over an irrelevant survey may cost the chain stores dearly.
Even assuming that the cited survey is applicable to the chain of cheese stores, it does not make sense to discontinue stocking most imported cheese varieties altogether. The stores may lose many patrons of the imported varieties, and a sizable chunk of the profits may be cut off. It is important to remember that customers enjoy variety while shopping, and often try out new options instead of their habitual choices. By eliminating variety, the stores may miss out on such experimental customers. In the worst case, other shops selling these imported varieties may open up to claim the market segment.
To conclude, the manager's recommendation to move the chain's focus to domestic cheese varieties and move away from imported varieties is misinformed at best and deleterious at worst. While making this argument, the manager has provided shaky evidence and made several assumptions about customer purchasing habits. The manager would benefit from a critical reexamining of the evidence. Otherwise, the stores may be led down a different path than the intended, and profits may actually fall instead of improving.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 29 15
No. of Words: 564 350
No. of Characters: 2737 1500
No. of Different Words: 259 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.873 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.853 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.573 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.448 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.19 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.586 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.281 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 18, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...m the market segment. To conclude, the managers recommendation to move the chains focus...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, however, if, may, really, so, then, well, while, at least, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2803.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 564.0 441.139720559 128% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96985815603 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87326216964 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65307657752 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 267.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.473404255319 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 891.9 705.55239521 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.6651331006 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.6551724138 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4482758621 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.24137931034 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => 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: 0.391198599115 0.218282227539 179% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0989101622054 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0871889475375 0.0701772020484 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.234839116406 0.128457276422 183% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0589976277008 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.97 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.