The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing.
"Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulties in obtaining reliable supplies of high quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of our alpaca overcoat. Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. This coat should sell very well: since we have not offered an alpaca overcoat for five years and since our major competitor no longer makes an alpaca overcoat, there will be pent-up customer demand. Also, since the price of most types of clothing has increased in each of the past five years, customers should be willing to pay significantly higher prices for alpaca overcoats than they did five years ago, and our company profits will increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
A memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing, is of the opinion that the company should bring back the alpaca overcoat which the company discontinued five year ago. The vice president has provided various evidences that support his claim that the alpaca coat will be a hit among it's customer base and it will help the company increase it's profits. The evidences provided by the vice president lends credibility to his claim, although a closer look could unearth a few alternate possibilities that could undermine the vice president's claim.
Firstly, the vice president states the reason why alpaca courts were discontinued five years ago was because of the difficulties in finding high quality wool fabric. The vice president claims that they have found a new supplier for wool fabric and hence, they should resume the production of alpaca overcoat. The vice president fails to provide evidence regarding the authenticity of this new supplier, nor does the vice president give proof whether the new supplier can continue providing wool fabric for a prolonged period of time. What if the new supplier is a fraud who takes up money but provides Sartorian with poor quality wool, or the supplier is unable to provide good quality wool for a long period of time? This could mean that Sartorian would have to cease the production of alpaca overcoats and it might lead to dis-satisfaction among it's customers and decrease in the profits of the company.
Secondly, even if we assume that the new supplier is a legitimate business, how can the vice president be certain that there will be an increased demand for alpaca overcoats among it's customers. The vice president does provide evidence that their competitor does not manufacture alpaca overcoats anymore, and there has been a gap of five years since Sartorian manufactured alpaca overcoat, but this does not guarantee the fact that alpaca overcoats will be in demand. What if the customers have moved to a different kind of overcoat during these five years, and it turned out to be a durable material? This could mean that the customers will be reluctant to move towards alpaca overcoats since they have found an alternative for it. This could undermine the vice president's claim that the alpaca overcoat will have a high customer demand.
Lastly, the vice president further bolsters his claim by specifying the pricing trend of clothes, and that it has increased over the past five years. As a result, the vice president is confident that customers will spend large amounts of money to buy the alpaca overcoats and show lesser reluctance to the price of alpaca overcoat, than they would have five years ago. The vice president's claim is based upon evidence that does not necessarily signify the fact that customers will be willing to spend money on alpaca overcoats. The vice president states that "most" types of clothing have seen an increase in price, not all of them. What if the customers prefer to buy overcoats that have not seen an increase in price over the last five years? This would mean that introducing an expensive product in the market would lead to losses rather than profits for Sartorian.
In sum, it cannot be categorically commented on the success of the vice president's prediction regarding sales of alpaca overcoat and the increase in profits for the company. The vice president has stated evidences that are erroneous and dubious, and cast a doubt on the success of re-introducing alpaca overcoats.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 587 350
No. of Characters: 2894 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.922 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.93 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.608 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.952 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.786 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.4 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.58 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.193 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 519, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...e providing wool fabric for a prolonged period of time. What if the new supplier is a fraud wh...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 703, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...to provide good quality wool for a long period of time? This could mean that Sartorian would h...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, look, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, kind of, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2955.0 2260.96107784 131% => OK
No of words: 587.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03407155026 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.9222030514 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68251743802 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.405451448041 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 929.7 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.9825576566 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.714285714 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.9523809524 23.324526521 120% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24299885835 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0920768270002 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0784329294601 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15116135767 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0753868564055 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => 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.