The following appeared in a memo from the marketing director of Top Dog Pet Stores.
"Five years ago, Fish Emporium started advertising in the magazine Exotic Pets Monthly. Their stores saw sales increase by 15 percent. The three Fish Emporium stores in Gulf City saw an even greater increase than that. Because Top Dog has some of its largest stores in Gulf City, it seems clear that we should start placing our own ads in Exotic Pets Monthly. If we do so, we will be sure to reverse the recent trend of declining sales and start making a profit again."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memo from the marketing director of Top Dog Pet Store, it is claimed that Top dog should start placing its ads in the Exotic Pets Monthly to reverse the recent trend of declining sales and start earning a profit. This conclusion by the marketing director was based on the increase in sales of the Fish Emporium Store after they started advertising in the Exotic Pets Monthly five years ago. The argument seems valid at first, however, as we delve deeper into it, we find many flaws. To evaluate the argument, three questions need to be answered.
Are the trends from five years ago, still valid today? It is possible that in the past five years, the sales for the Fish Emporium stores went down too, after a temporary increase. It is also possible that in the past five years, the number of people who buy fish have declined, causing a drop in the sales. If any of the above scenarios is true, the argument is weakened.
Were the sales increased as a result of the adverstising? It might be possible that there was a sudden increase in the number of people who were interested in buying fish, leading to an increase in the sales. It is also possible that Exotic Pets Monthly was a local magazine and the stores in the Gulf City never advertised in it but still saw an even greater increase in sales. If the above scenarios are true, the arggument does not hold water.
Did the Fish Emporium only advertise in the Exotic Pets Monthly? It is possible that the Fish Emporium advertised on televsion and multiple magazines, which led to an increase in the sales. Perhaps, they also provided offers with other magazines. In such cases, the concusio of the argument is weakened.
In conclusion, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three questions above and provide more evidence, the argument can be strengthened.
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: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 337 350
No. of Characters: 1534 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.285 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.552 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.421 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 97 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 74 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 25 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.722 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.206 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.553 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, so, still, then, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1589.0 2260.96107784 70% => OK
No of words: 337.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.71513353116 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28457229495 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51726159546 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 204.123752495 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.492581602374 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 504.9 705.55239521 72% => 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: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.4573122564 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 88.2777777778 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7222222222 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.11111111111 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.44592559829 0.218282227539 204% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.121664525771 0.0743258471296 164% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.145892532694 0.0701772020484 208% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217655259934 0.128457276422 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.14056959591 0.0628817314937 224% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.2 14.3799401198 71% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.1 12.5979740519 80% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.72 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 68.0 98.500998004 69% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.