The following appeared in a memo from the owner of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States.
"For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, all of the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
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 argument states that the best way to improve profits in all stores is to discontinue stocking many of the varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses. The argument at first glance seems plausible, however on scrupulous analysis, it is found to be rife with holes and assumptions. assumptions. A valid stand can be taken on this argument only after the evidence required to evaluate the argument is thoroughly analyzed.
The argument states that the five best-selling cheeses in the newest store were domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. The sales pattern of one store is being applied to all the stores of the company to conclude that people like domestic cheddar cheeses. The possibility that the imported cheeses might not be sold in the Wisconsin store is not being taken into account. There is no information given pertaining to the number of customers going to the Wisconsin store and the average number of customers going to any store of the company. It is possible that the people of Wisconsin prefer domestic cheddar cheese over any other type of cheeses. Therefore, it is unclear whether domestic cheeses are the favorite over the whole of America.
The author states that the Cheeses of the World magazine has carried out a survey which displays an increase preference for domestic cheeses among its readers. However, this statement has an ambiguous wording. In fact, to be able to thoughtfully evaluate the increase we need to know the initial percent of the subscribers who like domestic cheeses. If it is a small number, the increase cannot significantly impact on the popularity of the cheese. Moreover, even if a majority of subscribers prefer domestic cheeses over imported ones, we have no evidence that these subscribers are customers of the store chain. In other words, the opinion of Cheeses of the World magazine may not be relevant to preferences of purchasers of the chain and thus author’s usage of the data is equivocal.
Furthermore, the author claims that majority of the profit is coming from domestic cheeses. There is no relevant data provided pertaining to the costing and sales of foreign and domestic cheeses. It is impossible to conclude that limiting inventory of imported cheeses will indeed save the company money. It is probable that the imported cheeses generate a high profit even if the sales are low.
The argument consists of weak ideas, mixed issues and equivocal claims due to the flaws mentioned above in the line of reasoning. There is a possibility that the company can reduce expenses if the import of foreign cheeses, but the reasoning given is rife with flaws and inaccuracies. Therefore, it is extremely important to find the evidences that support the claims of the author. And only after finding the evidences, the following topic can be strengthened.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2334 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.977 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.663 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.391 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.903 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.478 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.529 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.116 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 316, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Assumptions
... to be rife with holes and assumptions. assumptions. A valid stand can be taken on this arg...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 259, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...t people like domestic cheddar cheeses. The possibility that the imported cheeses m...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, in fact, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2394.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 469.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10447761194 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65364457471 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75789497575 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441364605544 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 771.3 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 33.3394638345 57.8364921388 58% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.086956522 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3913043478 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47826086957 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => 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: 0.272840951351 0.218282227539 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0779734242011 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.077125428161 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13931563573 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0672885227692 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.