“Since a competing lower‐priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury ’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
The author of the argument claims that the reduction of price of newspaper "The Mercury" will increase reader and hence attract more advertisement. To support this argument, author has cited the reason of low cost competitive newspaper - The Bugle, which was started 5 years ago, and The Mercury's circulation declined by 10000 readers. Although the argument certainly has some merits, the lack of evidence, weak assumption and vague language makes the argument unsubstantiated and deeply flawed. Some of the flaws are as follows.
To begin with, the author has assume that the low cost of the competitor is the sole reason of the decline of The Mercury's reader. Author fails to consider that content of the news might be better and up-to-date compare to The Mercury's. This enable the reader to shift this choice to "The Bugle", and hence increase the circulation of new newspaper.
Secondly, author fails to perceive that if "he Mercury" reduces their prices, "the Bugle" might also reduce the selling price, and eventually the plan of selling price reduction will not work. Moreover, the author does not provide any data the reduction of cost lesser than the competitor will be enough to recover day to day expenditure. Otherwise, loss be much bigger compare to decline in sale.
Although the argument is categorically unconvincing, the author could have strength his argument were he to provide the reduce cost of "The Mercury" will impact their running expenditure, and cost the sole newspaper is the sole reason of the decline in sale. However, without this changes, the argument is implausible and the reasoning faulty.
To sum up, the author has presented interesting but flawed argument that makes several faulty assumptions. Had the author incorporate above mentioned factors, the argument would have been persuasive. As it stands, however, the argument is too weak to be true. Hence, I remain unconvinced.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 15 15
No. of Words: 310 350
No. of Characters: 1555 1500
No. of Different Words: 154 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.196 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.016 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.632 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 119 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 57 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.873 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.597 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 507, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: Some
...ment unsubstantiated and deeply flawed. Some of the flaws are as follows. To begin wit...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 31, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'assumed'.
Suggestion: assumed
...ows. To begin with, the author has assume that the low cost of the competitor is ...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 117, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...trength his argument were he to provide the reduce cost of 'The Mercury' will im...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 287, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...f the decline in sale. However, without this changes, the argument is implausible an...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1674.0 2260.96107784 74% => OK
No of words: 310.0 441.139720559 70% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.4 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.19604776685 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89804275197 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 160.0 204.123752495 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.516129032258 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 514.8 705.55239521 73% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 63.5098110039 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.625 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.375 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4375 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.213792658384 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0635198928131 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0880165436286 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12321525588 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0766002748845 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.04 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.45 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.