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 presented above rely on certain assumptions that need to be proved to evaluate the veracity of it. It refers to a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States, and some claims are based on what is observed only in one new store in a specific region on a particular year.
Firstly, based on the chain of cheese stores data, it is known that the best selling cheese in a new store opened last year is domestic cheddar cheese from Wiscosin. However, we don´t know if the consumer preferences that we observe in this new store are the same all over US and hence conclude that the best way to increase profitability is to discontinue stock of imported cheese. In order to affirm that claim more data is needed. It would be useful to have sell data by region in US during at least the last 7 years and evaluate consumer trends by region and by type of cheese (domestic and imported). Based on a more comprehensive study we could know with more detail if reduce stock of imported cheese would be or not a good policy to increase profits.
Secondly, it is mentioned a magazine that indicates an increased preference for domestic cheeses among its suscribers. This information is not enough to affirm that reduce stock of imported cheese is a good strategy. Survey carried out by the magazine could not be representative of customers of this specific chain of cheese. For example, this chain may target clients with high purchase power that prefer imported cheese and this is not reflected in the survey that ask people of medium socio-economical levels and hence have different cheese consumer patterns.
Lastly, if the company can reduce expenses by limiting stock, it is not clear why they need to reduce stock specifically of imported cheese. We cannot conclude from the evidence mentioned in the paragraph that imported cheese will have a lower demand in the next quarters. A better way to think about a policy to increase profits would be to improve logistics, trying to anticipate demand on each store based on consumer data and therefore reduce the stock needed to meet the demand. Also, with more data about consumption by region/stores, it can be improved the mix of cheeses in stock and hence reduce the absolute amount of cheese in stock by store.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 396 350
No. of Characters: 1851 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.461 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.674 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.539 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 81 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 26 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.601 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.37 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, hence, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, at least, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1896.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 395.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.8 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.45809453852 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65007066686 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.463291139241 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 615.6 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => 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: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.8309555735 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.4 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.3333333333 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.26666666667 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.286048822181 0.218282227539 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0981322284938 0.0743258471296 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0807193901221 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.180796213049 0.128457276422 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.048998647784 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.86 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.4 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => 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.