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 after their ads began appearing in the magazine. The three Fish Emporium stores in Gulf City saw an even greater increase than that. Because Top Dog Pet Stores is based 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 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.
The director of the Top Dog Pet Stores states that considering the improvements in the sales of Fish Emporium after publishing their ad in the magazine, it is a prudent decision for them to do the same in order to preclude descending sales of the topdog store. This argument may seem convincing at first sight, but engages in several logical fallacies and fails to present tenable evidence.
First, the author claims that after that fish emporium advertised in the magazine the sales rose. Thinking reasonably, there can be many other reasons for this improvement. Such as making changes in the salespersons of the stores that are more professional and voluble, therefore boosting the sales. Or maybe they have introduced new species of fishes that have captured the interest of customers and they bought more or recommended their stores to their acquaintances. Furthermore, the director just mentions a 15 percent rise and no other figure. It is probable that 15 percent is not a noticeable change if the sales of the past period is low. If any of these assumptions turn true the conclusion of the author renders void.
Second, the residents of the Gulf city are probably more inclined into fish than dogs. Just because the pet store is based in gulf city does not mean that people like dogs. Or assumably they don’t have enough facilities, time, space or financial resources for adopting a dog. Hence, even advertising in the magazine won’t change the situation and sales could remain stable.
Thirdly, the author states that there is a downward trend in the sales and profit of the dog stores. There could be numerous reasons for this decline. It is plausible that stores have raised their prices that customers cannot afford to buy dogs, therefore decreasing the sales. Perhaps the overall management, clerk’s behavior, dogs species are not appropriate or interesting enough thus, reducing their sales and popularity. Another possibility is the emergence of a much stronger rival in the market that is attracting the majority of the citizens. All of these assumptions could be likely and must be taken into consideration by the director.
In summary, the argument seems to lack seriously in cogency and persuasiveness. The writer requires to provide sufficient data and reliable statistics about the sales and operations of the fish emporioum store, overall appraisal of the performance of dog store and careful investigation of the market trend in order to make his conclusion rational.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 411 350
No. of Characters: 2042 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.503 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.968 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.718 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.064 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.487 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.032 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 647, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...if the sales of the past period is low. If any of these assumptions turn true the ...
^^
Line 4, column 208, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...hat stores have raised their prices that customers cannot afford to buy dogs, the...
^^
Line 5, column 100, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'providing'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'require' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: providing
...and persuasiveness. The writer requires to provide sufficient data and reliable statistics...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, second, so, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, in summary, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2104.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 409.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14425427873 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49708221141 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82977946057 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.535452322738 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 666.0 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 54.4477947972 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.19047619 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4761904762 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.259304655309 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0647480117224 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0673371562007 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138687438467 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0497898899529 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.