The following appeared in an editorial in a business magazine.
"Although the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years, a recent survey of video-game players suggests that this sales trend is about to be reversed. The survey asked video-game players what features they thought were most important in a video game. According to the survey, players prefer games that provide lifelike graphics, which require the most up-to-date computers. Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people ten to twenty-five years old, the age-group most likely to play video games. It follows, then, that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months."
The author concludes that the video game sales of Whirlwind will increase significantly in near future. His assertion is based on the responses of a survey in which people mentioned their desirable features in a video games, and whirlwind's video games satisfied those. However, his conclusion is based on three unfounded assumptions, that if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.
First of all, the author presumes that the survey is representative of their potential customers. It is possible that the survey was conducted among only few people, and the results of these may not be interpolated to millions of video game players. Perhaps the survey was conducted among few professional gamers, which may not be indicative of their vast majority of customers, who might actually be amateur players. Even if we assume that the survey also included amateur players , the author presumes that the responses from a survey can be taken at their face value. Perhaps the people just mentioned the latest 'cool' feature that is currently trending, and maybe they have no interest in it. If either of these scenarios is true, then the authors argument that survey responses will lead to increase in sales may not hold water.
Second of all, the author assumes that people who like life like graphics in their video games will actually purchase it. It is possible that very few video game players have the money to have computer setups which are capable of running such high level graphics. If this is the case, even if the gamers have the means to buy their games, they may not have the setup required to run those games. If this is the scenario, many people may not buy those games and the author's conclusion that the sales of the company will increase is significantly weakened.
Third of all, the author presumes that extensive advertising campaigns will lead to increase in sales. Maybe many of their potential customers already know about their video games, but are not interested in purchasing it. Perhaps there is some other company in the market which cater to similar needs, and their games are even better. If this is the case, customers might be reluctant to shift to Whirlwind's video games, when they are already happy with other video games that are currently out in market. Thus advertising may not actually lead to any new customers and the author's argument may not hold.
In conclusion, the author should provide evidence to the above mentioned three assumption, so that the validity of his argument that the sales of video games created by Whirlwind will increase in a few months can be evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 443 350
No. of Characters: 2156 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.588 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.867 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.56 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.316 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.648 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.561 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 482, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...the survey also included amateur players , the author presumes that the responses ...
^^
Line 3, column 744, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...er of these scenarios is true, then the authors argument that survey responses will lea...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 466, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... people may not buy those games and the authors conclusion that the sales of the compan...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 575, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ually lead to any new customers and the authors argument may not hold. In conclusion...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 80, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'assumption' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'assumptions'.
Suggestion: assumptions
...e evidence to the above mentioned three assumption, so that the validity of his argument t...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, third, thus, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => 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: 2211.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 443.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99097065463 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58776254615 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60774924012 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.424379232506 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 690.3 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.2503961194 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 116.368421053 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.3157894737 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.47368421053 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.261245747297 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0926730209113 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0649926996866 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169580276366 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0310304620702 0.0628817314937 49% => 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: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.96 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.91 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.