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 specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The argument that the cheese store should discontinue stocking many varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses makes numerous unwarranted assumptions regarding assuming discontinuing stocking imported cheese is the best method to improve profit, ignoring how and where the survey was conducted and assuming last year’s sales will be the same as this year’s sales. Taken as a whole, these unstated assumptions render the argument highly suspect. Indeed, if these assumptions are not hold true, the argument totally falls apart.
The first leap in the argument is the assumption that the best way to increase profit is by discontinuing stocking several varieties of imported cheese and concentrating on domestic cheeses. This is flawed because nothing in the argument shows any connection between profit increment and stocking of foreign cheese. Foreign cheese might be mostly preferred in the store’s location. Halting the stocking of foreign cheese might be deleterious to the store. Thus, for the argument to be valid, the author needs to check if stopping the stock of imported cheese will affect the profit. If there are evidences that the stock’s profit would be affected by the imported cheese cessation, then the argument is valid.
Another leap in the argument is the author assuming because a recent survey indicated an icreasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers, the stock should stop stocking imported cheese. The author fails to check the bases of the survey. How was the survey carried out? There is no indication in the argument that part of the survey was carried out in the store’s location. Furthermore, the argument failed to show the exact time the survey was carried out. Thus, the author needs to check the location that was surveyed. The author also need to check how the survey was carried out, the bases upon which the survey was conducted. Until these evidences are provided, stopping the stock of foreign cheese might be a parlous act.
Additionally, the author assumes because last year’s best selling cheese were domestic cheese, there should be cessation of foreign cheese stock. This argument is flawed because it assumes what happened last year will happen this year. Last year’s increase in domestic cheese sales might be as a result of festival or some activities that occurred in the region last year that are yet to, or might not occur this year. Besides, for the store to witness an increase in last year’s domestic cheese sale, there was a decrease in the previous year. Thus, something must have cause the increase. Therefore, the author needs to provide evidences of the factors that led to last year increase in sale. This evidences will indicate if stocking foreign cheese this year is necessary or not.
In conclusion, the argument that halting the stock of imported cheese will bring about increase in profit for the store makes a number of unstated assumptions that seriously undermines the argument’s validity. Indeed, if these unstated assumptions are not addressed, the argument totally falls apart. Thus, the store might be making a major mistake by discontinuing the stock of foreign cheese.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 516 350
No. of Characters: 2623 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.766 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.083 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.519 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 211 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.514 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.593 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.355 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.541 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.171 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 112, Rule ID: SHOULD_BE_DO[1]
Message: Did you mean ''?
...e were domestic cheese, there should be cessation of foreign cheese stock. This argument ...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, first, furthermore, if, regarding, so, then, therefore, thus, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2707.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 516.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24612403101 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76609204519 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60557024551 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.387596899225 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 811.8 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 71.6531425655 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.259259259 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1111111111 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.81481481481 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
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: 0.262359031974 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0877930371769 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0781591839978 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171663001478 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0699175285721 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.67 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => 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.