The following appeared in a memo from the business manager of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States.
"For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, all of the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
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 the memo of the chain of cheese stores located around the United States, the author talks about how the store can maximize profits by better inventory management, this is being done based on articles from the World Magazine and the sales of the newest stores of the chain. However, these are based on some unstated asuumptions by the author and the following reason show why they are flawed.
The author tells us how last year the best selling cheese in their newest store was a domestic produce from Winsconsin. This does not give the clear picture of the overall saled among all the states of the country, the place where the new store is located may have people who like the domestic produce and so they may but it more, which may be different for various stores depending on their location. It should also be noted that what took place last year in the domestic store sales may no happen this year as no fixed trend can be observed in a period of just a year. Last year domestic sales may be high due to unavaibliltiy of ceartain imported cheese and the closest to it maybe cheddar from Winsconsin.
It is should be taken into consideration that the assumption that people prefer domestic cheese than imported, is based on a survey from a magazine. It may be that the magazine's customers like the domestic cheese and but it as it has receipes to make with the domestic cheese, and people who like imported cheese may not be subscribed to any magazine or a different one which has recepies for imported cheese. So based on a single magazine no assumption can be made about the prefernce of people and what they like. Also, the subscribers of the magazine may represent a very small population the potential customers. So, it does not give a clear picture of the case.
The author say to limit the inventory of imported cheese so they can maximize profits and even stop the import as they think the demand is not present. THis may also backfire as no clear indication of the demand of cheese and it is assumed by the author that all the stores are alike like the new store, this may result downfall of sales as most stores may have demand of imported cheese only and drive the saled down as they plummet.
The following unstated assumptions need to be considered before taking any action as they severly weaken the arguements given by the author and need to be taken care of, a proper study of the saled across the sotres should be done to asses the real demand to get a clearer picture of the situatuion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 12 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 15 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 454 350
No. of Characters: 2029 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.616 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.469 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.309 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 80 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.056 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.385 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.63 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 4, Rule ID: IS_SHOULD[1]
Message: Did you mean 'it'?
Suggestion: it
...it maybe cheddar from Winsconsin. It is should be taken into consideration that...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => 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: 2073.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 454.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.56607929515 5.12650576532 89% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61598047577 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.36031793185 2.78398813304 85% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.422907488987 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 666.9 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
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: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 80.4731226521 57.8364921388 139% => OK
Chars per sentence: 148.071428571 119.503703932 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.4285714286 23.324526521 139% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.21428571429 5.70786347227 39% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.271391419634 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101656194906 0.0743258471296 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0830831417972 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153963084598 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0927098101864 0.0628817314937 147% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.46 48.3550499002 98% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.82 12.5979740519 78% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 98.500998004 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => 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.