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.Further more, 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 ofour stores is to discontinue stocking many ofour varieties ofimported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses.”
The business manager cites two evidence, report from the newest cheese store and survey conducted by Cheeses of World, to strengthen his position that, since imported cheeses are not as popular as local cheeses, the chain stores should stop stocking them for reduction of expenses. Ostensibly, his argument seems to be plausible, but when analyze specifically holes underlying his argument are disclosed, and even evidence his cites are not strong enough to support his position.
Firstly, the manager claims that the five best-selling cheeses at the newest store were domestic cheese from Wisconsin, assumptions behind the evidence is that the manager avers sold imported cheeses represent for only a small part. But here, his assumption is not correct, in that there is no information indicating the result of the fact that the five best-selling cheeses are domestic must be the dearth of imported cheeses' selling number. For example, while the five most popular cheeses are domestic, their representation might have only a few percent higher than imported cheeses, at that time, the manager's original conclusion could not hold water any more. Moreover, even the situation is just as the same as his assumption, generalizing from one newest shop to predict the wholescale selling performance is not appropriate as well. Thus, the first evidence of the manager should be obviated for disadvantages analyzed before.
Secondly, the survey from Cheeses of World is also problematic. The manager assumes that increasing preference of people for domestic cheese is really a trend for focusing on domestic cheeses while abandoning imported ones. However, increasing trend cannot help us to draw a conclusion like that completely. Reasons for that are two. The first one is the range of the survey's subject, wherever it conducts, the survey shows tenuous support. Assuming it is conducted nationally, it will contradict the first evidence he cites for the discrepancy of places, and if it is made just in the region in which the newest store locate, it still has the same result in that his conclusion is saying about the whole stores. And another reason is the situation behind the description--increasing preference. No matter how many people love domestic or imported cheeses, both have rooms to increase, sometimes the most-consumed products will decrease but it does not undermine its status. Indeed, for products positioning at lower level, the price increase room is usually bigger.
In sum, the manager fails to figure out the logic underlying two evidence he cites, thus leading to a very weak deduction. And his overall generalization method used in his deduction also has huge limitations that even more deteriorate his arguments' weakness, making his memo unconvincing for his high-ground of the chain store.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 448 350
No. of Characters: 2314 1500
No. of Different Words: 228 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.601 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.165 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.721 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.889 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.115 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 101, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...est cheese store and survey conducted by Cheeses of World, to strengthen his posi...
^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...strong enough to support his position. Firstly, the manager claims that the fiv...
^^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ted for disadvantages analyzed before. Secondly, the survey from Cheeses of Wor...
^^^
Line 5, column 602, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...f it is made just in the region in which the newest store locate, it still has th...
^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...price increase room is usually bigger. In sum, the manager fails to figure out ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, moreover, really, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, well, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2380.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 447.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.32438478747 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59808378696 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90327740904 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.530201342282 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 743.4 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 72.8520613264 57.8364921388 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.222222222 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8333333333 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.83333333333 5.70786347227 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.245826525063 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0766813518563 0.0743258471296 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0808771873825 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15190400023 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0460898231559 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.0 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => 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: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.