The following appeared in a memo from the marketing director 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 making a profit. Given our success selling cereal,
Bargain Brand should now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food
products as quickly as possible.
The marketing director of "Bargain Brand" Cereals is convinced that they should expedite the initiation of marketing of other low-priced food products to expand its business. The author cites their low price as a salient reason for the comparatively high customers who prefered them over top cereal companies. The companies who produced the top brands had purportedly reduced their prices to compete with "Bargain Brand"'s breakfast cereals and also introduced new budget brands, but it had no effect on Bargain Brand's sales as the author states that no increase in prices were required to maintain their profit. The author seems to have based his argument on some unwarranted assumptions that should be addressed to make a cogent case.
The author fails to quantify the amount of price reductions the top-selling cereal companies have introduced in order to compete with them. Perhaps the price reduction was not significant enough to affect the sales of Bargain Brands. This leaves the Bargain Brands to the risk that if the top-selling cereal companies reduce their prices further and by a significant amount the sales can get egregiously affected. The author must provide statistical or relative information about the amount of price that was lowered by the competitors so as a better decision can be taken.
The author fails to mention that if their are other food products the top-selling companies draw their profit from. It is possible that these competing companies have higher profits that they earn from the sale of other food products in comparsion to the cereal sales. This might be a reason that the companies have not put in enough efforts to maximise their profit in cereals and diverted their efforts towards other food products. This might result in the Bargain Brand encountering tougher competition in terms of other food products and might result into loss as this argument fails to inform the readers about the profit sources of the competitors. The author must investigate the sources of profit of its competitors to have an comprehensive idea before promoting other low-priced food items.
The author's argument seems to be precipitative given that they had introduced the their first product only a year before. Perhaps the customers were excited to try out the new product and break the monotony of buying the same product from other companies. It may be possible that a large section of the customers to relapse back to prefering products from the top-selling companies after sometime. The author's assumption that one year is enough duration to judge the sales of a certain product might be deleterious for the company's future endeavours.
In conclusion, the argument stands weak and must answer the above concerns to strengthen the argument. If the author is able to provide more information on the amount of price reduction by its competitors and investigate the sources of profit of its competitors then in my opinion the author can make a cogent case.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 487 350
No. of Characters: 2468 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.698 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.068 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.85 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.341 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.11 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 103, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... convinced that they should expedite the initiation of marketing of other low-pri...
^^
Line 1, column 322, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...refered them over top cereal companies. The companies who produced the top brands h...
^^^
Line 1, column 500, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s and also introduced new budget brands, but it had no effect on Bargain Brands s...
^^
Line 1, column 635, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...were required to maintain their profit. The author seems to have based his argument...
^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ld be addressed to make a cogent case. The author fails to quantify the amount of ...
^^^
Line 3, column 37, Rule ID: THEIR_IS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'there'?
Suggestion: there
...n. The author fails to mention that if their are other food products the top-selling...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 732, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...es of profit of its competitors to have an comprehensive idea before promoting oth...
^^
Line 4, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...oting other low-priced food items. The authors argument seems to be precipitative give...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 79, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'their'?
Suggestion: the; their
...pitative given that they had introduced the their first product only a year before. Perha...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 402, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...p-selling companies after sometime. The authors assumption that one year is enough dura...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, so, then, in conclusion, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2518.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 487.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1704312115 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69766713281 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77767932772 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433264887064 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 774.9 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
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: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.979333083 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.526315789 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.6315789474 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.42105263158 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => 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: 0.287833995305 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100970697657 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0732012839977 0.0701772020484 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162720143747 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0885641318706 0.0628817314937 141% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.