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 marketing director suggests that they should institute a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program to attract more audience and increase their profits. However, the author needs to answer several questions first in order to justify his claim.
First, it is mentioned in the article that the proposed program can lead to increased profits. Yet, we need to know how much it cost the theatre to hold such a free campaign. If they want to evaluate whether they can make more revenues with the proposal, they can't only consider the benefits it brings to us but also need to take the cost entailed in to account. For example, the theatre might have to spend $30,000 dollars to hold the program, but the theatre could only earn more $20,000 dollars after the promotion.
Second, the author says that a nearby company have a successful experience to increase its profits with a similar program. Nevertheless, is the company analogous to the theatre? It is conceivable that these two firms would at least have some differences. Therefore, it might not be reasonable for the director to assume that the theatre will have the same outcome as the company had. For example, the company is located in a neighborhood where many rich people live. As a result, those who attended the program two years ago started to think that what the company did is interesting and decided to buy their products. On the contrary, the theatre is located in rural areas where most people don't have the same amount of money.
Even if the theatre is analogous to the company, is the program the only and the most important reason that made the company earn more since then? The increase in profits might result from several reasons. For example, many people decided to move to the town at which the company is. Therefore, the promotion campaign might only have a little effect in increasing the revenues. For another example, a big corporation signed a contract with the company two years ago, so it started to have a considerable and consistent earning since then.
The author states that by holding a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program, the theatre is likely to stop its decline in audience and increase their profits. However, there are some important questions that need to be answered to substantiate his argument.
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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: 20 15
No. of Words: 390 350
No. of Characters: 1844 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.444 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.728 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.461 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 135 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.852 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.06 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 261, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...e more revenues with the proposal, they cant only consider the benefits it brings to...
^^^^
Line 3, column 486, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t the theatre could only earn more 0,000 dollars after the promotion. Second,...
^^^
Line 5, column 692, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ocated in rural areas where most people dont have the same amount of money. Even ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 540, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...able and consistent earning since then. The author states that by holding a Shak...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, nevertheless, second, so, then, therefore, at least, for example, as a result, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => 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: 1895.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 389.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.87146529563 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44106776838 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54865358706 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.483290488432 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 588.6 705.55239521 83% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 36.9222155348 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.75 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.45 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.25 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.116047554439 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0393590760524 0.0743258471296 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0458828852494 0.0701772020484 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0771728097484 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0278861132715 0.0628817314937 44% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.66 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.