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."
The memo asserts that building a new shop in the city of Grilldon will help the HobCo gain more enthusiastic customers. To justify this assertion, the memo cites a survey which shows that most interviewees would welcome a new hobby shop in Grilldon. The memo also mentions that the hobby businesses in this city increased recently, and the increasing number of retirees will also contribute to the market of hobby shops. Although this statement seems logical at first glance, its assumptions are actually vague, oversimplified and unwarranted, failing to support the statement.
As a threshold matter, the conclusion is based on a gratuitous assumption that the result of the survey can be a strong evidence. It is true that 88 percent of interviewees claim that they would welcome a new hobby shop in southeastern Grilldon, but the survey fails to provide more detailed information about the result. If the number of interviewees is not large enough to represent the whole residents of this city, this figure will be meaningless. Even if the sample population had been large enough in this research, the research would still have not been strong enough to substantiate the statement because it did not mention the interviewees who did not respond to the survey. Therefore, if the memo provides more information about the research, it will help to strengthen the conclusion.
In the second place, one major assumption in short of legitimacy is the causal relationship claimed between the increasing hobby businesses in the region and the conclusion that this city needs a new hobby shop. The memo points out that the hobby business has increased by 300 percent in the past ten years, but this figure is only a relative figure, not an absolute number. If the hobby business is extremely small in the past, even if it has increased by 300 percent, the scale of the hobby business in Grilldon would still be quite small compared to other businesses. Therefore, the memo must provide more information about the specific revenues brought by the hobby business in this region to prove that the hobby business really becomes better than the past.
In addition, the memo hints that the increasing number of retirees in this region will help to stimulate the market of hobby shops., but the memo holds an over-optimistic attitude towards this. The memo argues that old people have enough time to devote to hobbies, but the memo fails to prove that old people in the region of Grilldon will devote much time and energy to hobbies. After all, it costs old people not only time but also money on developing hobbies, but how wealthy the retirees are in this region is not explored at all, and if this region is full of retirees from disadvantaged families, it will not contribute to the development of the hobby businesses in this area.
To sum up, the proposition of the memo may not be persuasive enough. To justify this proposition, the memo must provide the specific performance of the hobby businesses in this area. Also, the memo needs to prove that the survey has a scientific sample population, which can support the authenticity of the results, and meanwhile, how retirees in this city think of hobby shops and whether they can afford hobby shops will help to assess this recommendation better.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 555 350
No. of Characters: 2682 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.854 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.832 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.678 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.211 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.165 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.588 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, really, second, so, still, then, therefore, thus, while, after all, in addition, in short, it is true, to sum up, in the second place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2748.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 555.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95135135135 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85370353223 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75473988519 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.398198198198 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 852.3 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 57.4163006379 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.631578947 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.2105263158 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.94736842105 5.70786347227 157% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.216740110353 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.086881893548 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.072558796661 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.146853437651 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0697874251506 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.5 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.