The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals."
"One year ago we introduced our first product, Bargain Brand breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies. Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands, not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue ** a profit. Given our success in selling cereal, we recommend that Bargain Brand now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In this memo the author claims that the company will continue to make a profit from sales of its cereal, and therefore that the company should expand its bargain-priced product line to include other foods as well. To support these assertions, the memo points out that the company did not raise its prices in the situations that companies producing the top brands lowered their prices to compete with Bargain Brand Cereals and that they introduced their own bargain-priced brands. The argument in the memo, however, is not persuasive as it stands.
First, the mere fact that Bargain Brand Cereals did not raise its prices even though the companies producing top-selling brands does not indicates its continuing success in the cereal market. What really shows instead it is whether its profits are not diminished in that situation. Since if its profits are reduced by competitors with decreased prices, then it could be a signal indicating its failure in the long term. Also, the fact that companies producing top-selling brands lower its prices does not mean that they lowered prices of top-selling cereals. They could lower other products which are irrelevant to Bargain Brand Cereals.
Secondly, the memo also states that it does not lower its prices despite of the introductions of new competitors in budget cereal brands. Yet, this does not mean that it stands out in the market. It is entirely possible that competition in the bargain-priced cereal went on being hotter and hotter and Bargain Brand Cereals’ profits are reduced by the competition. Or, it might be that if the company had raised its price, then it would have lost its market share so that its profits were diminished by doing so more than by newly introduced hot competition in the market. If so, the company’s price policy is not a reliable indicator of its success.
Finally, although the company succeed in the cereal market despite of competition with others, the memo’s conclusion that Bargain Brand Cereals should expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced foods is not persuasive. The author may assume that with lower priced policy it will success in other markets. However, this contradicts our common sense that there are many markets where price is less important than other factors such as qualities of product. If the company begin a business on healthy foods where customers are more sensitive to qualities of products than prices, its lower price strategy would be failed.
In conclusion, on several grounds, the evidence above lends little credible support for memo’s conclusions. To strengthen the argument, the author must show that a strong linkage between the fact that it did not raise prices and its success in the cereal market. To better evaluate the author’s conclusion that Bargain Brand Cereals should expand its line of bargain-priced foods, we would need more information about the market where the company will participate in, specifically, whether the market is price-sensitive or quality-sensitive.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- duplicated to argument 1. need to argue:
'One year ago we introduced our first product, Bargain Brand breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies.'
we may say:
maybe very low prices are only one of the reasons to cause the successes.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 489 350
No. of Characters: 2479 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.702 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.07 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.653 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.45 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.718 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.553 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 138, Rule ID: DOES_X_HAS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'indicate'? As 'do' is already inflected, the verb cannot also be inflected.
Suggestion: indicate
...s producing top-selling brands does not indicates its continuing success in the cereal ma...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 138, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'indicate'
Suggestion: indicate
...s producing top-selling brands does not indicates its continuing success in the cereal ma...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 59.0 28.8173652695 205% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2565.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 489.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24539877301 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70248278971 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80837337166 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.435582822086 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 769.5 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.6023219397 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.25 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.45 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.75 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.32003469609 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.115305413139 0.0743258471296 155% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0898063673989 0.0701772020484 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.216146801853 0.128457276422 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0309619958289 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: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => 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: 13.47 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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.