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 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 in Palm City, 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 questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
While it may seem a good idea to move to Buzzoff Pest control to save money, the argument is rife with numerous flaws. The claim is based on unwarranted assumptions that render the argument highly suspect. If these assumptions are proven to be false, the argument would completely fall apart.
Firstly, the argument assumes that both the warehouses where working under the same conditions. There is a possibility that there was a storm or a flood in Palm City in the last month whereas the weather in Wintervale was sunny. Losses must be compared when the conditions are identical in both the warehouses. To make a stronger recommendation, the vice president must ask about the weather conditions and other factors that affect the quality of the warehouse.
Secondly, the argument compares absolute values of losses rather than proportion of losses incurred by the warehouse.It is unclear how much dollar worth food was stored in the warehouses. For example, if the warehouse stored food worth 1 billion dollars, the loss is 0.02%. On the other hand, if the warehouse stored food worth $50,000, the loss is 40%. It is very easy to misunderstand data when the context is missing. The vice president needs to gather information about the food stored in both the warehouses and compare the proportion of losses to strengthen his/her argument.
Moreover, apart from assuming similar conditions of the city, the arguments extends to assume similar conditions in the warehouses. To assess the quality of the pest control, it is imperative to have information on how much of the food was susceptible to pest. Consider an instance where the warehouse in Wintervale stores a lot of packed foods that are impervious to pests and the warehouse in Palm City stores a huge amount of fresh products. Gathering information on the composition of the warehouse will assist the vice president in making a sound decision.
Considering all the above facts, the vice president must gather information on the conditions on the city, total amount of food stored and the composition of the food stored. He/she must be cautious of making the decision based on a flawed and misleading argument.
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1767 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.868 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.732 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.423 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 118, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: It
...ion of losses incurred by the warehouse.It is unclear how much dollar worth food w...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, whereas, while, apart from, for example, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1821.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 360.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05833333333 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.35587717469 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82103950502 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.477777777778 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 567.9 705.55239521 80% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.7716089735 57.8364921388 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.166666667 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.72222222222 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.171050326831 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0559514656848 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0558984080482 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.096409953822 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0503631219387 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.