The following appeared in a memo from New Ventures Consulting to the president of HobCo, Inc., a chain of hobby shops.
"Our team has completed its research on suitable building sites for a new HobCo hobby Shop in the city of Grilldon. We discovered that there are currently no hobby shops in southeastern Grilldon. When our researchers conducted a poll of area residents, 88 percent of those who responded indicated that they would welcome the opening of a hobby shop in southeastern Grilldon. Grilldon is in a region of the nation in which the hobby business has increased by 300 percent during the past decade. In addition, Grilldon has a very large population of retirees, a demographic with ample time to devote to hobbies. We therefore recommend that you choose southeastern Grilldon as the site for your next HobCo Hobby Shop. We predict that a shop in this area will draw a steady stream of enthusiastic new HobCo customers."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author’s argument that southeastern Grilldon is a good place to open next HobCo Hobby Shop is flawed because of numerous reasons. In the argument, the author does not only draws conclusion based on vague and ambiguous terms, but also uses data from a limited sample to make sweeping generalization about an entire population. Furthermore, the author makes the mistake of ignoring qualifications of poll participants.
First of all, the author cites that 88 percent of survey attendees would welcome the opening of a hobby shop in southeastern Grilldon, but the author does not mention the number of attendees. Moreover, the author does not provide any data about ages, genders of survey participants. For example, the survey may only be made with women or young residents. As long as the author has no information about features and number of attendees, this argument will stay unconvincing.
Secondly, the argument claims that the hobby industry has increased by 300 percent during the past decade, and, again, the author gives no information about whether the increase is in decaying or growing order. This is important, because if the increase in last years is lower than previous years, it means that people do not spend much time to hobbies as in the past, and hobby shop will probably bankrupt. This scenario seems more plausible as there is no hobby shop in southeastern Grilldon right now.
Finally, the author mentions that there is a very large population of retirees who could spend their time for hobbies in Grilldon. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground as it uses vague terms like very large. In addition, it should have given numerical data about what retirees do in their free time and their health status. For instance, most of the retirees could be living in nursing home. Hence, the argument would have been a lot more convincing for the reader, if the author had provided a concrete report. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must provide more concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a detailed analysis of survey attendees. Finally, to better assess the argument, it would be necessary to know more about what people love to do in their free time.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: For example, the survey may only be made with women or young residents.
Error: may Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: In conclusion, the author's argument is unpersuasive as it stands.
Error: unpersuasive Suggestion: No alternate word
flaws:
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 1988 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.873 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.559 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.474 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.87 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.551 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 182, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'draw'
Suggestion: draw
... the argument, the author does not only draws conclusion based on vague and ambiguous...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, for example, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2062.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05392156863 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7260367628 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 209.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.512254901961 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 633.6 705.55239521 90% => 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: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.018678795 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.526315789 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4736842105 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.15789473684 5.70786347227 143% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.102165798797 0.218282227539 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0365573918846 0.0743258471296 49% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0465797758996 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0627669409346 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0357486592092 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.