The following appeared in an e-mail sent by the marketing director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville.
"Over the past ten years, there has been a 20 percent decline in the size of the average audience at Classical Shakespeare Theatre productions. In spite of increased advertising, we are attracting fewer and fewer people to our shows, causing our profits to decrease significantly. We must take action to attract new audience members. The best way to do so is by instituting a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program this summer. Two years ago the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a 'Free Plays in the Park' program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. If we start a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program, we can predict that our profits will increase, too."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The e-mail sent by the marketing director of Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville suggests that they should start a program called “Shakespeare in the Park” in order to attract more audience and increase the profits, but the assumptions on which the groundwork for the conclusion is laid cannot be logically justified.
To begin with, the director assumes that since the program “Free Plays in the Park”, initiated by Avon Repertory Company two years ago proved fruitful and the profit was increased by 10 percent may not work for Classical Shakespeare Theatre. Since it was instituted two years ago, people may not be interested in watching free plays anymore and their program “Shakespeare in the Park” may not work at all in attracting more audience. And even if, they start the program and people do come to watch free plays at the park does not guarantee that people will go to the theatre as well. These facts that the director disregards make this claim fallacious.
Furthermore, there is a possibility that he difference in plays is the reason Shakespeare Theatre is losing its audience. Maybe Avon Repertory has a different set of plays and those offered by Shakespeare are of completely different genre. The preference of people could be a factor that entails the decreasing profits at the latter. Had the writer presented us with information regarding the types of plays at both the companies, the claim would not have been rendered invalid.
More so, the marketing director also fails to acknowledge that there could be a hole in the marketing strategies they have been using. It is proffered that they have been advertising more and more, yet there is a decline in the size of audience and profits. The medium of advertising they are using could be at fault. Are the using hoardings or TV ads or other banners or Flyers? There is no information provided that could tell us why their advertising is not working. So, the ignorance of a failing marketing strategy makes this claim unsound.
Thus, the argument that Classical Shakespeare Theatre should establish a “Shakespeare in the Park” program in order to improve their profits and entice more audience towards the theatre does not make a cogent case and fails to prove its conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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also need to argue:
maybe other reasons caused the increased profit in Avon Repertory Company.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1839 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.865 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.678 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.625 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.741 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 72, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...al Shakespeare Theatre should establish a 'Shakespeare in the Park' pro...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, if, may, regarding, so, thus, well, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1932.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 378.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11111111111 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40933352052 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9342333533 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.484126984127 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 590.4 705.55239521 84% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.4148726021 57.8364921388 134% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.75 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.625 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5625 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.275562572504 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0826910059282 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0765611177869 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171588378974 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.072095214025 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.