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 director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville suggest that instituting a ‘Shakespeare in Park’ program can increase the profits. However, the director must answer the following questions to strengthen his claim.
The director states that they are attracting fewer and fewer people to their shows in spite of increased advertising. However, how much budgets were spent on these advertisements, a few hundred dollars, or ten thousand dollars? The director might not be aware of that they did not spend enough to advertise these shows, and they might just deliver some flyers and posters to the pedestrians. To attract more audiences, they should buy some TV commercial advertisements, and they did not apparently utilize this method. Moreover, there may be some other reasons for the decreasing audiences. The level of performance of actors may not be as good as before because these actors did not improve their performance skills. This would cause the quality of these shows decrease largely, and a majority of people would not be willing to come to the theatre and just watch these bad shows. Thus, the director should provide the exact total of the expense of these advertisements and tell us whether the quality of performance has declined than before.
The director claims that the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a ‘Free Plays in the Park’ Program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. Yet, What differences are between ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ and ‘Free plays in the Park’? ‘Free plays in the Park’ could attract more people to watch because its content is more popular within the public. Unfortunately, the content of Shakespeare shows are less attractive because these classical performances are more difficult to understand, and people will be less willing to watch Shakespeare shows. Therefore, the director has to tell us whether the content of Shakespeare shows need to redesign greatly.
The director mentions that if they hold a ‘Shakespeare in the park’ program, they will also see a significant increase in their profits. However, what is the exact number of the increased profits? If they really accomplish this program and attract lots of people to watch their shows, they may still not receive higher profits than before. They may spend more money to install the equipment in the park because it is more difficult to finish these tasks outside the theater. Furthermore, they may also have to lend some special equipment, such as lighting equipment, to operate these shows because it will be tougher to perform these shows perfectly. As a result, the director has to tell us if they will spend more budgets to finish these shows than before.
The 'Shakespeare in the Park’ may increase the profits of this theatre, but the director still needs to answer the above questions to strengthen his argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2330 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.979 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.606 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.273 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.714 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 132, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
... of increased advertising. However, how much budgets were spent on these advertiseme...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, but, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, really, so, still, then, therefore, thus, as to, such as, as a result, in spite of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => 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: 2432.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19658119658 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77361621204 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.423076923077 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 719.1 705.55239521 102% => 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: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 34.3378931953 57.8364921388 59% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 110.545454545 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.2727272727 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.63636363636 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.11721655383 0.218282227539 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0442417111773 0.0743258471296 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0641422239109 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.103275865876 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0870250151864 0.0628817314937 138% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.