The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client.
Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienced twenty days with below-average temperatures, and local weather forecasters throughout the region predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes have been built in this region during the past year. Based on these developments, we predict a large increase in the demand for heating oil. Therefore, we recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In the recommendation, the author argues that the client needs to invest to Consolidated Industries, the retail sale of home heating oil company because of the weather and the increase of houses. This recommendation may seem compelling at first, the lack of answers to the questions leads me to question the validity of the recommendation.
First, the author needs to answer whether the accuracy of the prediction is high. The author argues that the weather of twenty days last year in the northeastern United States was colder than the average temperatures and local weather forecasters predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. However, if the accuracy of the prediction is not high, it is hard to believe the future’s weather tendency. Even though the accuracy is high, this is just a prediction, so this could not be happened in real and the last year’s low temperature would just be an aberrant case. Thus, the author should give more detailed information about the prediction.
In addition, the question that the author needs to answer is whether the reason why the number of house increases is because of development. The author argues that the increases of house in the northeastern United States means the region’s development. However, it is possible that the number of houses increases because several big families started to separate their house to form their own family. People decided to move out when they are getting married or get babies and if this is the reason of the changes in number of houses, the total number of residents is not changed, and this could not support the author’s argument that the increase of house means the development of that region. Thus, the author needs to give information of the reason of house increase.
Lastly, the author should answer whether the investment in Consolidated Industries is the good choice. The author argues that because of several developments, invest to the retail sale of home heating oil is the great choice to the client. However, if there was already a retail sale of home heating oil company that monopolizes the region, investing in Consolidated Industries would not be the best choice. In this case, investing to the dominant company or other companies that use home heating oil such as boiler company would be the better choice than investing to Consolidated Industries.
In conclusion, the recommendation is not sound on many grounds. To make a stronger recommendation, the author needs to provide the answers to the questions about the prediction, the reason about house increase, and the business distribution in the region.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 434 350
No. of Characters: 2156 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.564 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.968 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.733 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.397 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.614 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In the recommendation, the author argues...
^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...on the validity of the recommendation. First, the author needs to answer whethe...
^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...iled information about the prediction. In addition, the question that the autho...
^^^
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: REASON_IS_BECAUSE[1]
Message: Probably an incorrect phrase. Use 'the reason 'is that''.
Suggestion: is that
...eason why the number of house increases is because of development. The author argues that ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ation of the reason of house increase. Lastly, the author should answer whether...
^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...investing to Consolidated Industries. In conclusion, the recommendation is not...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, lastly, may, so, thus, in addition, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2215.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 434.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10368663594 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56428161445 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85525524832 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.410138248848 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.8757060716 57.8364921388 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.055555556 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1111111111 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.61111111111 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => 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: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.147378451462 0.218282227539 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0504898730123 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0540420548832 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.080790072494 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0422097560546 0.0628817314937 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.52 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 98.500998004 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.