108) 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.
In this memo, the owner of a chain of cheese stores contends that his stores should discontinue stocking many of their varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses to improve profits. Although the argument may seem convincing at first, the lack of evidence leads me to conclude that the argument is invalid on many grounds.
First, the owner needs to provide evidence that last year’s cheese sales trend will continue this year and beyond. The sales trend of domestic cheeses should be kept under constant scrutiny in the long run. Last year’s popularity of Wisconsin cheeses might be temporary. The author also assumes that the sales trend of their newest store would be similar to that of their whole stores throughout the U.S. However, there is no substantial evidence whether their newest store can represent stores across the country. It can be possible that the consumers of the newest store have preferred the cheeses from Wisconsin, for they live in Wisconsin and the newest store locates in Wisconsin. In that case, the sales result of the newest store could not represent the countrywide sales results.
Furthermore, the owner assumes that people are going to consume domestic cheeses because there are increasing preferences for domestic cheeses on the recent survey. The owner needs to supplement the specific evidence that people’s preferences can be interpreted directly to their behaviors. Although respondents prefer domestic cheeses to imported cheeses, they may buy imported cheeses when they are cheaper than domestic cheeses. In addition, the author trusts the survey results which show the increasing preferences for domestic cheeses among the magazine’s subscribers. Despite the results of the survey, it should be clear how much preferential gap is in recent surveys compared to the past for the domestic cheeses. If the original results which are the percentage of whom answered on preferring the domestic cheeses of the survey were marginal, the current increasing trend could also be meaningless. Even if the gap between the past and the new surveys’ results is substantial, the owner needs to evaluate the evidence whether the subscribers could represent all of their consumers. The number of subscribers could be negligible comparing countrywide cheese consumers.
In conclusion, the argument is unsound on many grounds. In order to strengthen the argument, the author should reconsider whether their consumers will buy domestic cheeses more than imported cheeses or not.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Minimum 3 arguments wanted.
Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
'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.'
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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: 18 15
No. of Words: 398 350
No. of Characters: 2096 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.467 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.266 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.609 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.191 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.529 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In this memo, the owner of a chain of ch...
^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e argument is invalid on many grounds. First, the owner needs to provide eviden...
^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...present the countrywide sales results. Furthermore, the owner assumes that peop...
^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...omparing countrywide cheese consumers. In conclusion, the argument is unsound o...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, then, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2162.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 398.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.43216080402 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46653527281 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7982505799 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.442211055276 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 646.2 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.150868869 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.111111111 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1111111111 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.44444444444 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.286175217642 0.218282227539 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0917324729471 0.0743258471296 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0712015539882 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170925858163 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0635311547325 0.0628817314937 101% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.21 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.