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.”
The statement presents a recommendation from the marketing director of the classical Shakespeare theatre of Bardville to increase profits of theatre using a Shakespeare in the park program. As the author claims a program called free plays in the park was presented in the park by Avon Repertory Company two year ago which resulted in 10 percent increase of their profits. Based on this result, the marketing director of Bardville’s theatre assumes that they can increase their profit by attracting new audiences using a free program this summer. The recommendation may seem reasonable at first sight, but it is rife with unanswered questions and unexamined suppositions that make the recommendation untenable.
Firstly, a ten-year period is a long time to evaluate the profit of the theatre and numerous factors can affect the number of audiences during this time. As the author mentions, the size of the average audience has experienced a 20 percent decline, however, he does not mention the population change of the Bardville. Perhaps, the number of citizens of the Bardville region has decreased and consequently the number of audiences of the theatre declined. Therefore, the exact statistics and information regarding the number of audiences should be provided to evaluate the real percentage of decrease of audiences. Following that, the author claims that the theatre has increased the advertising but failed to attract new audiences. To further examine the results of advertisement, the author needs to mention the methods of advertising. It is possible that they use ads on the newspaper or some unpopular TV channels. Nowadays people use social media and internet more than anything. Thus, using ads on the websites could be a practical alternative solution which is neglected.
Secondly, alternative facts through these ten years have been totally disregarded. Maybe people’s taste has changed during this period and they prefer to watch new theatres with modern stories and a change of story for the theatre may result in profit instead of a free play in the park with the old story. Additionally, a theatre consists of a hall, scene, waiting rooms, café and etc. that may need rehabilitation after ten years. It is possible that the atmosphere and structure of the building of the theatre is not suitable and people avoid this place not because of the play but because of the place.
Thirdly, the author argues that Avon company was successful in gaining profit by presenting a free play program in the park, but he refuses to explain details of the program which caused its success. Perhaps the genre of the Avon company’s play is basically different and is entertaining for people to be presented in a park. However, people would not like to watch a Shakespeare play which is a classic play in a park. Moreover, the Avon company’s experiment belongs to two years ago and during these two year many things may have changed. Considering different situations in two years ago and current time for both theatres of Avon and Bradville, one cannot apply the method of Avon for Bradivlle and expects triumph.
To recapitulate, providing a free program may attract some audiences at the park but cannot guarantee the further profits of the company. If the author seeks to reach at the conclusion of considering a free play as useful, he should elucidate the above-mentioned ambiguities and provide concrete evidence to support the recommendation. Otherwise, the recommendation is not reliable and it may incur loss.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws：
need to compare A and B: it works in A, while it may not work in B.
and suppose it works for B too, it deosn't mean 'If we start a ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ program, we can predict that our profits will increase, too.'
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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: 25 15
No. of Words: 574 350
No. of Characters: 2896 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.895 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.045 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.856 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 225 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 179 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 116 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 80 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.96 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.82 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.288 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.493 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 191, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...sing a Shakespeare in the park program. As the author claims a program called free...
^^
Line 3, column 384, Rule ID: AND_ETC[1]
Message: Use simply 'etc.'.
Suggestion: etc.
...s of a hall, scene, waiting rooms, café and etc. that may need rehabilitation after ten ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, first, firstly, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, third, thirdly, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2976.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 574.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18466898955 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89472135074 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01215431341 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.459930313589 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 918.9 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.2275793326 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.461538462 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0769230769 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.88461538462 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.204655490569 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0554388674172 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0630075776946 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10899388753 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0532670196323 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.76 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 150.0 98.500998004 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.