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.
In the memo, the vice president of a food distribution company argues about their problems regarding pest damages and he believes that despite the high price of Fly-Away pest control company, they are not successful to lessen the food distribution company’s worth of damages. This conclusion has some fallacious assumptions behind it and it’s because of lack of concrete evidence. To evaluate the conclusion, the vice president should consider examining some piece of evidence.
First of all, the vice president simply compares the two warehouses in different cities. There is no sufficient evidence in the memo which could depict if these two warehouses are analogous. If the warehouse in Palm City has more amount of food being stored, then it’s possible that it’s worth of damages would be more than the other warehouse, despite the kind of pest control company being used. Also, it’s plausible that Palm City has more pests which are become resistant to any chemical used to kill them. Maybe, Palm City’s location cause this warehouse to have more pets than Winter vale. If it is near any forest could have more harmful pests. Therefore, if either evidence is proved to be true, the conclusion will be invalid.
Moreover, the Palm City’s warehouse is used to maintain fast-foods. Naturally, fast-foods are easier to corrupt than other foods. There is not any evidence mentioned in the memo that shows what kind of foods are stored in Winter vale’s warehouse. Perhaps, Winter vale’s warehouse is used for some kind of food which are not attractive for pests and consequently, its rate of food damages is low.
Finally, the vice president assumes that the pests are responsible for the high rate of damages in the Palm City warehouse. What if other factor plays a significant role in damages? It’s possible that the condition for maintaining foods is not proper in comparison with Winter vale’s warehouse. He should examine Palm City’s warehouse cooling appliances, or interview the manager of that warehouse to figure it out what is the main problem. Maybe, the workers who work in Palm City’s warehouse did not do their responsibilities carefully and as a result, the worth of food damages become high. Without solid evidence about Palm City’s warehouse condition of preserving, the vice president’s argument would not be sound.
All in all, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed due to the considerably lack of evidence. The vice president of the food distribution company should consider some concrete evidence to be able to decide about the pest-control companies and their effectiveness in controlling damages.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 429 350
No. of Characters: 2146 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.551 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.002 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.653 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.532 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.324 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.118 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 596, 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.
...use to have more pets than Winter vale. If it is near any forest could have more h...
^^
Line 3, column 396, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ently, its rate of food damages is low. Finally, the vice president assumes that...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, first, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, therefore, kind of, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2230.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 429.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19813519814 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55107846309 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77765312884 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.449883449883 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 703.8 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.4141367909 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.363636364 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.72727272727 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.334638279212 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0947567582374 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0945104402568 0.0701772020484 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.214058119581 0.128457276422 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0544995876447 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => 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: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.11 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.