The following appeared in a memo from the owner 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 its 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 discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the evidence offered to argue the main claims of the argument are not as cogent as they appear. Concluding the best way to improve profits in the chain of cheese stores of the company based on a superficially explained study, ignoring other factors playing a role in the perceived outcomes and assuming all stores mirror the functionality of another, is unreasonable.
Firstly, the author fails to provide evidence to support the study mentioned in the argument. Cheese of the World magazine stated an increasing preference for domestic cheeses amongst its subscribers, but it is not mentioned how many individuals are subscribed to the magazine. If the magazine only has 20 subscribers, then this is an inaccurate representation of the preference of the wider public. The population of the United States is in the millions, so if 20 people reported favoring domestic cheese over imported cheese, less than 1% of the whole population has this preference and thus, this is not a significant enough number to conclude the preference for domestic cheese is increasing. On the other hand, if the author presented information showing the number of subscribers of the Cheese of the World magazine was in the millions, the argument would deem to be more plausible. In either case, the home of these subscribers will not be stated and can even be outside of the United States, so it will still not have sufficient information to argue the main claim.
Moreover, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine the subscribed population of the magazine is indeed in the millions and all of those individuals reside in the US, it is still unjust to conclude the findings from one store is due to the preference of the population. So, the author continues to speculate other factors are not contributing to the perceived results. The five best-selling cheeses at the newest store were domestic cheese but this could be because in that area there was a cooking competition and the mandatory ingredient was any domestic cheese. This could mean residents of that area were buying domestic cheese to partake in a competition which would show the incline in domestic cheeses bought by people. Furthermore, the arguer also implies because certain cheeses are being sold more, they are also liked more. But if there is a competition taking place, it is not necessary for one to favor domestic cheese, instead they are required to buy a certain type of cheese. Because additional aspects are not taken into account regarding the incline in domestic cheese bought, the argument is weakened. However, provided that individuals buying domestic cheese were solely based on their own likings, the argument would be strengthened. But even so, the findings from one store is not enough to conclude all stores will show the same results.
Lastly, the arguer suggests all locations of the company will be identical to each other. Because the newest store of the company demonstrated the top preferences of the citizens to be domestic cheese, the author would like to decrease the import of imported cheeses. However, they are not considering the differences that exist in different areas of the US. There is a possibility that the newest store is in an environment in which the people that live around that area are not willing to buy products coming from outside of the country. But this will not be the same in all areas of the US. Since the argument does not include locations and the people in the argument, it is undermined.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions made by the argument, the author is unsuccessful in compiling a compelling case to prove reducing expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores will be to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 26 15
No. of Words: 655 350
No. of Characters: 3230 1500
No. of Different Words: 259 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.059 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.931 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.769 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 251 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 185 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 134 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 75 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.192 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.105 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.731 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.456 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, moreover, regarding, so, still, then, thus, even so, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 43.0 19.6327345309 219% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 94.0 55.5748502994 169% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3303.0 2260.96107784 146% => OK
No of words: 655.0 441.139720559 148% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.0427480916 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.05894927669 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83860522482 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 269.0 204.123752495 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410687022901 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1063.8 705.55239521 151% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 73.272450969 57.8364921388 127% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.038461538 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1923076923 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.53846153846 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.276125504324 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0727641921209 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0588533350453 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166189244655 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0311942758198 0.0628817314937 50% => 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: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 136.0 98.500998004 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.