The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a food distribution company with food storage warehouses in several cities.
"Recently, we signed a contract with the Fly-Away Pest Control Company to provide pest control services at our fast-food warehouse in Palm City, but last month we discovered that over $20,000 worth of food there had been destroyed by pest damage. Meanwhile, the Buzzoff Pest Control Company, which we have used for many years, continued to service our warehouse in Wintervale, and last month only $10,000 worth of the food stored there had been destroyed by pest damage. Even though the price charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower, our best means of saving money is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services."
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 author of the memo recommends that the best way of saving money for the company is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services. To support this recommendation, the author appeals to the fact that although the company changed pest control services from Buzzoff to Fly-Away at Palm City, Palm City’s loss from pest is larger than that at that of Wintervale, where the company continued to service from Buzzoff. However, the author fails to consider other pertinent factors, which may or may not invalidate the argument.
First, the author cites losses from each warehouse to compare the efficacy of pest control services. From the fact above, the author reasons that since loss at Palm City is larger than at Wintervale, pest control of Wintervale is more effective than that of Palm City. The author assumes that the two warehouses are similar enough. However, the author provides no substantiating evidence for it. Without such evidence, it is entirely possible that relative loss at Palm City is far less than at Wintervale. If so, it strongly indicates that the new service by Fly-Away is more efficient than former service by Buzzoff. Or, it is equally possible that the damages at Palm City are caused by new kind of pest so that if they had not changed the service, they would have harmed as much. Thus, without evidence for similarity between the two warehouses, the recommendation is too weak to follow.
Secondly, the author reasons that though the price of Fly-Away is much cheaper than that of Buzzoff, return to Buzzoff would be save money. Here, the author assumes that the difference of prices is neglectable relative to the possible additional revenue from effective damage control. However, since the author does not provide exact difference of prices, it is entirely possible that, although the company lessen pest damages by returning to Buzzoff by 10,000 dollars, price of Buzzoff is more expensive than that of Fly-Away by 20,000 dollars. If so, the returning to former service, in spite of its effectiveness of pest control, would decrease benefit of the company. Hence, to persuade me that the company should return to former pest control service, the author suggest evidence on exact prices of two services.
Finally, the author concludes that “all” the warehouse the company has to return to the Buzzoff service. However, the author only cites cases from two warehouses, the sufficiency of the recommendation is not strong enough to substantiate the generalization. Without evidence from other cases, it could be that all the warehouses other than Palm City’s and Wintervale’s saved more money by changing their service to Fly-Away. Then returning would harm the overall benefit of the company. Or, it is equally possible that it would be more saving that only warehouses where their damages were increased after changing service should return to the Buzzoff and others should remain the Fly-Away, since the cost charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower. In other words, without evidence for uniformity of their warehouses, one-size-fits-all strategy is hard to be justified.
In sum, the recommendation fails to persuade me as it stands. To strengthen the validity of the recommendation, the author need to implement what factors really cause and affect the damage. To assess the efficacy of the policy, I also need to know whether the warehouses the company has are uniform or not.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- can be put together to argument 2 for the conclusion:
Even though the price charged by Fly-Away is considerably lower, our best means of saving money is to return to Buzzoff for all our pest control services.
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more arguments wanted regarding their size, location...
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 563 350
No. of Characters: 2791 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.871 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.957 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.62 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 219 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 165 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.52 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.7 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.64 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.513 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 162, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[15]
Message: Did you mean 'cause and effect'?
Suggestion: cause and effect
...r need to implement what factors really cause and affect the damage. To assess the efficacy of t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 288, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'been'.
Suggestion: been
... whether the warehouses the company has are uniform or not.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, thus, as to, kind of, in other words, in spite of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2900.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 562.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16014234875 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86893614481 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81858846349 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.396797153025 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 909.0 705.55239521 129% => 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: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 14.0 4.22255489022 332% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.0856471084 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.0 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.48 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.28 5.70786347227 93% => 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 : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.215722169577 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.068617914948 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0612325966175 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137695387074 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0672552725049 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.99 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.