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.
According to the memo, the author argues that Top Dog Pets Stores could reverse the declining sales and start making a profit. It seems plausible at first, however, a few assumptions lead me to question the argument.
The author should find detail information to provide more credible assumption on the circumstances between the past and nowaday. It is plausible that conditions of the past, 5 years ago, might be better than the present. Forexample, the economic condition of the past was better than now that without magazine the great number of pet sales was available. Even if the economic conditions were similar, the initial number of fish sales might be minute that increased number of 15 percent is also imperceptible.
Additionally, the author should give more convincing assumption on the strategy between fish sale and dog sale. This is because the traits between two pets are dissimilar, fish live in water and dogs live on ground, they are demanding in different ways. Moreover, the population of fish enthusiasts and dog lovers should be substantiated, the number of the fish enthusiasts might be large in 5 years ago, on the otherhand, dog lovers might be minute nowadays. Therefore, it is not a good assumption for Top Dog to blindly follow the Fish Eporium, which put their ads in Exotic Pets.
Finally, the author should consider the gap between the income and expenses of the Top Dog Store when they begin the advertisement. It is likely that advertisement through magazine could increase the income of the Top Dog. Nevertheless, advertising cost might override the income that Top Dog makes, since the advertisement cost a lot. Thus, it is better for Top Dog to view the profit in the long run instead of hastly put advertisement in the magazine.
In summary, some assumptions seems unconvincing on many grounds. Therefore, the author should consider more detail information to provide more convincing assumption.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
No. of Words: 318 350. more arguments waned, like:
1. other reasons may cause the increase for Fish Emporium
2. suppose it works for Fish Emporium, while it may not work for Top Dog Pet Stores.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 318 350
No. of Characters: 1574 1500
No. of Different Words: 155 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.223 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.95 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.781 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 115 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 78 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.875 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.721 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.562 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.617 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, moreover, nevertheless, so, therefore, thus, in summary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1628.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 318.0 441.139720559 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11949685535 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22286093782 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89571250366 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.493710691824 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 497.7 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.1586163846 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 101.75 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.875 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.625 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.245918071162 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.080480512757 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.062815216156 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120741294648 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0672980863706 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => 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: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 98.500998004 66% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.