The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of
video rental stores.
“In order to reverse the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at
Movies Galore’s ten video 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
Marston significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6:00 P.M. rather than
9:00 P.M. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years
ago. Therefore, in order to increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering
great movies at low prices, we recommend implementing similar changes in our other nine
Movies Galore stores.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to
decide whether implementing the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result and
explain how the answers to those questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the memorandum by the owner of Movies Galore, a line of reasoning is presented which should be scrutinized before the final conclusion is believed with full confidence. On the first glance, the reasoning sounds to be without many loopholes, but it is infact riddled with assumptions and leaps in logic: it is not answered if the reduction in expenses won't come at the expense of profit itself, or if the success of a single store in implementation of a strategy guarantees the success of other nine stores. In addition, due to the lack of figures on the actual popularity of their special bargain offers, it is doubtful if lowering of the expenses is actually the only viable option.
The author is of strong opinion that the lowering of expenses is the only method by which the stores can reverse the trend in the profit. The reasoning provided is that a different optio--of raising the prices of the rentals--would instead lead to poorer sales. Firstly, there are other methods like improvement in the marketing strategies, which could help increase the sales, and thus, the profits. In which case, the author's strong conviction that cutting the expenses is the only viable option would fall apart, and so would the final conclusion. Secondly, if the prices of the rentals are raised, the profit gained from the increased margin could actually surpass the loss from the dip in the total sales, which would undermine the author's conclusion that it is not an option worth considering.
The author goes on to describe how a store in downtown Marston was able to lower its expenses by reducing the time of operation and by reducing the stocks of old movies. However, the author doesn't provide the much needed evidence by which the subsequent conclusion can be relied upon--that the store saw overall growth in profits. In a case where the store's change in timings and cutting of stocks led to sinking of sales more than the savings from the expenses, the author's whole construct would fall apart; cutting down of expenses, then, wouldn't actually lead to good profits.
A more subtle assumption made by the author is on the similarity of all ten stores. Consider the following: the downtown Marston store actually manged to make profits, despite cutting down the expenses, for the reason that the timing changes and the stock changes didn't matter to the kind of patrons to the stores; maybe the regulars visited much earlier than 6:00 pm and represented the youth population more, who bought the latest movies more than the older ones. All the while, the other stores had different type of visitors, for instance, the ones who visited at the night more, and bought older movies more often. This scenario would mean that the assumption of similarity of all the ten stores is false, and the success of the metioned stored wouldn't be mirrored in other stores. Thus not actually leading to the desired results; the conclusion would be false.
Hence, it can be concluded that without the substantial evidence on actual profitability of the downtown Marston store's new method, the actual insufficiency of other methods for increasing the profit, and the similarity between all the store's patrons, the conclusion can't be relied upon.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 173, Rule ID: ON_FIRST_GLANCE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'at'?
Suggestion: At
...usion is believed with full confidence. On the first glance, the reasoning sounds ...
^^
Line 2, column 186, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...oning provided is that a different optio of raising the prices of the rentals wo...
^^
Line 2, column 224, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...io of raising the prices of the rentals would instead lead to poorer sales. Firs...
^^
Line 3, column 290, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...subsequent conclusion can be relied upon that the store saw overall growth in pro...
^^
Line 4, column 801, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ldn't be mirrored in other stores. Thus not actually leading to the desired res...
^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'but', 'first', 'firstly', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'then', 'thus', 'while', 'for instance', 'in addition', 'kind of']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.248456790123 0.25644967241 97% => OK
Verbs: 0.125 0.15541462614 80% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0864197530864 0.0836205057962 103% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0416666666667 0.0520304965353 80% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0123456790123 0.0272364105082 45% => OK
Prepositions: 0.132716049383 0.125424944231 106% => OK
Participles: 0.0385802469136 0.0416121511921 93% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.73704934088 2.79052419416 98% => OK
Infinitives: 0.016975308642 0.026700313972 64% => OK
Particles: 0.00154320987654 0.001811407834 85% => OK
Determiners: 0.137345679012 0.113004496875 122% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0216049382716 0.0255425247493 85% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.016975308642 0.0127820249294 133% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3306.0 2731.13054187 121% => OK
No of words: 547.0 446.07635468 123% => OK
Chars per words: 6.04387568556 6.12365571057 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83611736076 4.57801047555 106% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.394881170018 0.378187486979 104% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.287020109689 0.287650121315 100% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.18647166362 0.208842608468 89% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.115173674589 0.135150697306 85% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73704934088 2.79052419416 98% => OK
Unique words: 251.0 207.018472906 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45886654479 0.469332199767 98% => OK
Word variations: 54.1132197285 52.1807786196 104% => OK
How many sentences: 17.0 20.039408867 85% => OK
Sentence length: 32.1764705882 23.2022227129 139% => OK
Sentence length SD: 85.4520647107 57.7814097925 148% => OK
Chars per sentence: 194.470588235 141.986410481 137% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.1764705882 23.2022227129 139% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.0 0.724660767414 138% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 3.58251231527 140% => OK
Readability: 60.8784815572 51.9672348444 117% => OK
Elegance: 2.34482758621 1.8405768891 127% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.413921346916 0.441005458295 94% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.211416515016 0.135418324435 156% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0823773041304 0.0829849096947 99% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.754234432951 0.58762219726 128% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.116869253686 0.147661913831 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.23928336171 0.193483328276 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0530921316533 0.0970749176394 55% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.632935501664 0.42659136922 148% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0276089783883 0.0774707102158 36% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.319649449163 0.312017818177 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0472925068619 0.0698173142475 68% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.33743842365 156% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.87684729064 29% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 6.46551724138 170% => OK
Negative topic words: 2.0 5.36822660099 37% => OK
Neutral topic words: 1.0 2.82389162562 35% => OK
Total topic words: 14.0 14.657635468 96% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.