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.
In the above memo, the author argues that to be more lucrative in the future they should discontinue stocking any imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheese. The author supports his argument based on the result from the previous year, that the best-selling cheese in the new stores was domestic cheese. Furthermore, the author strengthens his argument based on the survey report of the magazine, which shows the increasing preference for domestic cheese among its subscribers. However, before evaluating the author’s argument three unstated assumptions need to be evaluated.
Firstly, the author argues that they should stop serving imported cheese based on the report, which implies that the best-selling cheese at their newest stores was domestic cheese from Wisconsin. A reader may raise questions about the authenticity of the method of using circumstances from one thing to generalize and predict others. The author provides no admissible evidence regarding the people’s choice from the other regions. Maybe customers at the old stores prefer imported cheese, then switching to only domestic cheese may not be much of a lucrative idea. Even if this is not the case, there is a possibility that very few people knew about the new stores and last year very few people visited the stores. Then, one can not assume that people will prefer domestic cheese in the future. If any one of the above scenarios is true then the author’s argument holds no water. If the author can provide more evidence perhaps in the form of a survey from all of their stores, then the author’s argument may have sounded warranted to a certain extent.
Secondly, the author supports his argument that people’s preferences for domestic cheese will increase in the near future based on the survey report of Cheeses of the World magazine, though the author does not provide any justifiable evidence regarding the sample size of the survey. Perhaps only 1000 people responded to the survey. Then, drawing a conclusion based on a very small sample size seems fictitious. If the above scenario is true, then the author’s argument is built unreliably. If the author is able to provide some evidence, perhaps in the form of a statistical data chart of each of the cheese stores throughout the country, then it will be possible to justify the author’s argument.
Thirdly, the author states that the best way to enhance the profit is to discontinue imported cheese without any proper evidence. Perhaps people may not prefer only domestic cheese. There is a possibility that people want both kinds of cheese in the stores. Maybe in some parts of the country, most of the customers are not from the united states and they prefer imported cheese rather than domestic cheese, then discontinuing the imported cheese will not be a remunerative idea. In other words, perhaps people’s demands can not be fulfilled only by domestic cheese. Any data perhaps in the form of a systematic survey of the people’s preferences must be included in order to rectify the flaw and strengthens the argument.
In the conclusion, the author's argument that stands now is seriously flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to rectify the three unstated assumptions above and offer more evidence(perhaps in the form of a systematic research study) then, it will be possible to evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation that the company can enhance its profit by discontinuing of stocking of the imported cheese and concentrating on the domestic cheese.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 584 350
No. of Characters: 2931 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.916 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.019 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.669 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 239 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 119 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.36 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.713 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.76 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.455 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 796, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...l prefer domestic cheese in the future. If any one of the above scenarios is true ...
^^
Line 6, column 25, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... the argument. In the conclusion, the authors argument that stands now is seriously f...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3006.0 2260.96107784 133% => OK
No of words: 584.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14726027397 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91590194646 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77590833864 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.385273972603 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 938.7 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.6725889026 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.24 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.36 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.64 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.198972142755 0.218282227539 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0652023920618 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0584607353788 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.126263924478 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0493095800291 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.