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 consulting company in a memo to the HobCo, a chain of hobby shops states that according to their research the company should open a new shop in southeastern Grilldon. The memo provides two pieces of evidence to support their conclusion- first that there is no shops in the southeastern Grilldon and that poll rating suggested 88 percent of people would be interested to the shop's opening; second how many people among the retirees would actually be interested to devote their time for hobbies. To show that these arguments are reasonable, several questions need to be answered.
First of all, what fraction of the total amount is the actual 88 percent pole rating suggesting? Perhaps, 8-9 people out 10 represents the total fractions then obviously the HobCo company would not be pleased by the reports. Similarly, the consultation company supports their recommendation base on that since there has been a 300 percent increase in the hobby business in the Gilldon region in past decade. Again, what fraction of shops in the region does 300 perecent represent, there is not enough information provided by the consultant here. It is possible that in 10 years, there has been only a total of 3 shops in the Grilldon region. As if both these cases proves to be true, then the consultant's claim here stands unwarranted and their recommendation is not persuasive.
Secondly, the memo states that here a very large population of retirees in the region of Grilldon which could provide their time to hobbies. But the question here is, in reality what amount of the actual retirees be interested in the hobbies provided by the HobCo company? The pole taken by the consultaion firm, in that 88 percent waht amout of people interested account for these retirees? As, chances are that even though they have ample amount of time the shhop's location maybe a problem or the hobbies provided by the shop would not be any interest to them. Another possibility is, perhaps they would like to spend their time in parks, gardens or church rather than spend their money just to kill time in developing their hobbies. There is not research or information provided by the consultant regarding this. As to answer these questions, a research or analysis report must be provided by the firm to support their recommendation, without which their conclusion doesn't holds water.
In conclusion, we see in the passage the beginnings of a coherent argument, but more information is needed to fully evaluate the strength of the claims. Namely, we would need to know what fraction of 88 and 300 percent represent of the entire people and shops, respectively, and also what number of these retirees would actually be interested.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 454 350
No. of Characters: 2202 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.616 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.85 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.652 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.222 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.04 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.332 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 253, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'there are no shops'?
Suggestion: there are no shops
...to support their conclusion- first that there is no shops in the southeastern Grilldon and that p...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 106, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...percent pole rating suggesting? Perhaps, 8-9 people out 10 represents the total f...
^^
Line 3, column 970, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ndation, without which their conclusion doesnt holds water. In conclusion, we see in...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, as to, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2247.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 453.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96026490066 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61343653406 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72456265677 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470198675497 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 677.7 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.3382467672 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.833333333 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1666666667 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.72222222222 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => 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: 0.162792966632 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0614330317537 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.079266713775 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.109893520412 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0733029008261 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.