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 discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The memo written by the vice president of marketing at Dura-Sock claims that they should decrease the use of Endure manufacturing process, which makes their products more durable. The author provides two evidences to support the argument. First, the study shows that their customers purchases new socks every three months. And, the survey shows their customers prefer stylish colors. However, these evidences cannot guarantee the validity of the claim. More evidences are needed to substantiate the argument.
First, we need to know do the customers will discard the old socks to buy new socks every three months. The fact that their customers buy new socks every three months doesn’t mean they don’t use their old socks anymore. It is possible that they wear both old socks and new socks after the purchasing. In this sense, the durability of the socks sell by the company still affect customers’ user experiences. That is, if their old socks are not durable, they will lose the trust of the company and turn to other companies for buying their socks. Hence, only after we clarify this aspect, can we make the decisive judgement.
Second, it is necessary to clarify that do their customer care about the style more than durability of the socks. Although the study evince that customers value most the appearance of socks, it doesn’t mean they will put this feature before durability. If the customers found their socks not durable anymore, they may turn to other company to buy socks so decreasing the profits of Dura-Sock company. Therefore, it is risky to abandon the Endure manufacturing process hastily without elucidate this point.
Finally, we need to evaluate the cost of making socks more stylish. Even though shutting down the Endure manufacturing process to making socks more stylish will attract more customer, it is unjustifiably to assert that the increase sales will be enough to compensate the accumulating cost bringing from the extra expenditure for stylish appearance of socks. In short, the cost that invests on the new technology outweighs the benefits, the company will still fail to increase their overall profits.
To sum up, extra evidences are needed to be evaluated: what is customer’s user habit of the socks, what is customer’s preference between durability and stylish appearance, and what is the extra cost to change the sock’s process? Only by clarifying these point, the president of Dura-Sock can make a correct judgement.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 404 350
No. of Characters: 2004 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.483 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.96 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.503 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 132 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.238 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.201 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.534 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 8, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... make the decisive judgement. Second, it is necessary to clarify that do their...
^^
Line 5, column 437, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...pany. Therefore, it is risky to abandon the Endure manufacturing process hastily without e...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 95, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...more stylish. Even though shutting down the Endure manufacturing process to making socks m...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, still, therefore, in short, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => 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: 2086.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 401.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20199501247 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.47492842339 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63096878616 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.473815461347 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 630.0 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 57.8879204832 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.3333333333 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0952380952 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.28571428571 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.231191657979 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0772820154549 0.0743258471296 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0636624609332 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143113255021 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0317342762445 0.0628817314937 50% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => 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: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 12.3882235529 48% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
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
---------------------
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.