The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of marketing at Dura-Sock, Inc.
"A recent study of our customers suggests that our company is wasting the money it spends on its patented Endure manufacturing process, which ensures that our socks are strong enough to last for two years. We have always advertised our use of the Endure process, but the new study shows that despite our socks' durability, our average customer actually purchases new Dura-Socks every three months. Furthermore, our customers surveyed in our largest market, northeastern United States cities, say that they most value Dura-Socks' stylish appearance and availability in many colors. These findings suggest that we can increase our profits by discontinuing use of the Endure manufacturing process."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The memo shared by the Vice President of Marketing at Dura-Socks Inc is incomplete. Further information is required to evaluate the complete scenario.
Firstly, it is mentioned that customers of Dura-Socks Inc, on average, purchase new socks every three months but an average does not provide us with the true values of sales and purchases taking place. It may be possible that, Dura-Inc launches new varients of socks every few months and hence the brand loyal customers buy the socks. It is nowhere indicated that the old socks have been soiled and thus the purchases are made every three months. It is also possible that some people buy very few pairs of socks while others buy in bulk, thereby skewing the average. Again, this does not question the durability of the socks in any manner. More information is needed to check if this recommendation stands true.
Secondly, by discontinuing the use of Endure manufacturing process, Dura-Socks cannot guarantee increase in profits. Profits depend on a variety of factors such as cost of goods, operations cost, sales price etc. Maybe the Edure manufacturing process provides a cost effective approch to manufacturing socks which might not be available in future if it is discontinued. It is also possible that there might be no new technology available in current times to produce socks. Thus, discontinuing an already established service is not recommended. Purchase of new sophisticated machinery may lead to reduced profits as it will be a cost incurred by the company to change the manufacturing process. Workers operating these machines will also have to be trained leading to a break in supply chain operations of the socks.
Lastly, the memo does not state any evidence of previous socks going bad. It may be the case that customers in Northeastern United Sates cities feel more cold and hence buy socks in more varients frequently than cutomers in other markets. Discontinuing the Endure manufacturing process just beacuse the customer segment of one geographical location is not focusing on durability as a characteristic will not necessailry lead to profit-making.
Hence, additional information is required to check if these recommendations are reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 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: 356 350
No. of Characters: 1827 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.344 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.132 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.995 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.67 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.544 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 448, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... purchases are made every three months. It is also possible that some people buy v...
^^
Line 7, column 254, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...utomers in other markets. Discontinuing the Endure manufacturing process just beacuse the ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1874.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 356.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.26404494382 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34372677135 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04595426661 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.542134831461 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 596.7 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.5962655473 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.6315789474 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7368421053 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.89473684211 5.70786347227 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => 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: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.211786053521 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0678351706706 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0790479900068 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119349175267 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0731324400778 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.