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.
The argument that the food distribution corporation ought to return to Buzzoff Pest Control Company for its pest control services so as to save money is not complete. There are gaps in the logic that render it unconvincing. The following essay will expose these flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be made more cogent.
First, the argument unfairly presupposes that the occurence happened in Fly-Away Pest Control Company and resulted in the $20,000 loss of food for the distribution company last month is something repeating quite often, yet it could be simply not the case. Perchance such unfortunate incident occured last month was quite rare during the possible years of the food company's contract with Fly-Away. Or maybe that adverse occurence happened because one or some of Fly-Away's workers acted recklessly, and that Fly-Away got rid of them after the incident. Since the author fails to consider and rule out such possibilities, the argument remains dubious. If the vice president had shown that such unfortunate happenings have been quite frequent during the years of collaboration with Fly-Away, and that working with Buzzoff would be necessarily devoid of such financially harmful experiences, the argument could have been strengthened.
What is more, the less amount of financial loss in Wintervale where the food distribution company works with Buzzoff, compared to that in Palm City, is little indication that the authror's recommendation would be reasonable. It is entirely possible that the amount of the food distribution company's bussiness activities in Palm City is cosiderably greater that in Wintervale with the result that the company's loss in the former is twice the latter as mentioned in the argument. Hence, such lower financial bottom-line in Wintervale is not due to the fact that Buzzoff is more efficacious than Fly-Away. Similarly, if the food distribution company raises the unknown amount of its business transactions in Wintervale, it is highly probable for the corporations to witness losses much more than Palm City's. Such considerations cast grave doubts on the validity of the argument. The author could reinforce their case by presenting detailed information about the volume of the food distribution company's business interactions in Palm City and Wintervale, and that they are comparable with each other in size.
Finally, the vice president suggests returning to Buzzoff regardless of the fact that it is more expensive than Fly-Away. However, he/she provides no data on whether adopting such step would be economical for the company or not. It is plausible that paying for the financial obligations imposed on the company through collaborating with Buzzoff would be beyond the corporation's current affordability, and that the so-called "low" difference between the costs of Fly-Away and Buzzoff is still a remarkable amount of money. This point alos does not justify the writer's suggestion. To better assess the verifiability of the argument, presenting a sort of cost-profit analysis of the food distribution company would be advantageous for that matter.
To summarize, the argument is not wholly sensible. The evidence in support of the recommendation that returning to Buzzoff would save money for the distribution company does little to substantiate that suggestion, since it does not address the suppositions already brought up.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 530 350
No. of Characters: 2816 1500
No. of Different Words: 251 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.798 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.313 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.955 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 84 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.711 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The argument that the food distribution ...
^^^
Line 1, column 134, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...l Company for its pest control services so as to save money is not complete. There are g...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... argument could be made more cogent. First, the argument unfairly presupposes...
^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...gument could have been strengthened. What is more, the less amount of financi...
^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... comparable with each other in size. Finally, the vice president suggests ret...
^^^
Line 7, column 573, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
...y. This point alos does not justify the writers suggestion. To better assess the verifi...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uld be advantageous for that matter. To summarize, the argument is not wholly...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, similarly, so, still, then, as to, sort of, what is more
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2879.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 529.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.44234404537 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79583152331 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.037933636 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 204.123752495 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.476370510397 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 886.5 705.55239521 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.0523748401 57.8364921388 131% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.095238095 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1904761905 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.85714285714 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
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: 0.297212148833 0.218282227539 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0888154102142 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0787147228607 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166678349077 0.128457276422 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.06690745906 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.57 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.94 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 136.0 98.500998004 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.