Argument Topic :“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.”
The author in the above argument states that in order to reverse the recent decline in profits, they must cut down their operating expenses instead of renting the videos at a higher price. He believes so because another video store in downtown Marston has started closing earlier than regular times and cleared their stock of old movies. However, I find this argument heavily flawed for the reasons mentioned below.
First, the author fails to analyse if shutting down the operating expenses in Marston store actually aided in preserving the profits. It might have seriously impacted the sales as well, but just because difference between sales and cost seemed to be constant, author believed in the fallacy that profits decline is being reversed. He mentions that this has been existing since a month, but a month is too short a period to analyse the sales and profits. In the long term, it might actually lead to more loss. This is because, it quite possible that most of the customers shop post 6 P.M. given it is also the time they get free from their work. Secondly, the author fails to mention that how by clearing the stock of movies older than five years would help in sustaining the profits. Five years is a very short period and these days people like to watch movies even fifty years old like “Godfather”, “The Conjuring” or even eighty years old “Gone With The Wind”.
Second, the author draws the comparison between the downtown video store and all the other video stores based on inconsistent facts. Even if we assume that closing down video rentals earlier and clearing some not so old but recent movies actually will help in making profits, yet we do not know if the same scenario also applies to all other video rental stores. It could be possible that Marston rental store is not in a very populated area and also where most of the people belong to higher age groups who show lack of interest in the video rentals. In such a case, the steps taken seem sensible at Marston, but they should not be blindly undertaken at every video store without going through proper facts!
Hence, I find the author’s conclusion completely flawed built on nebulous information that relies more on assumptions. Instead, the author should properly circumspect by doing a proper survey for each and every video rental store which must include information about the demographics of population it operates in, the timings when it is the busiest, which movies are preferred the most and which genre is completely declined. Then only a proper and informed decision can be taken.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 442 350
No. of Characters: 2086 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.585 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.719 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.259 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 24 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.37 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.309 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.508 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 964, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... eighty years old “Gone With The Wind”. Second, the author draws the comparison ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2155.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 442.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87556561086 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58517132086 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.39920259509 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 236.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.533936651584 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 652.5 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.7342052009 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.6875 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.625 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.190492822877 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0574865658812 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0583224579919 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118255959186 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0551105043475 0.0628817314937 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.32 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.