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.
In the memo from the vice president, he argues that the company can increase the profits by discontinuing the use of endure manufacturing process. The author supports his argument with the following assumptions, that if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.
First of all, the author presumes, without any evidences, that the customers purchase the socks every two months because of its low durability. However, this may not be the case. It may be possible that the customers wanted to wear new style of socks and thus made those purchase, despite the socks being intact. It is also possible that the socks might have damaged due to bites of rodents and pets. Perhaps, the socks has been lost and thus the customers made the purchase. If these scenarios have merit, then the authors argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the authors claims that it is the appearance and availability in variant colors of their socks that made the customers buy the product, based on survey of the largest market. However, this may not necessarily be true. The survey may not be representative of all the markets. Also, if the survey was representative, valuing the appearance and availability of different colors does not necessarily mean that they do not value the durability at all. It is possible that the survey had multiple choice question which lacks durability in the option and forced the customers to choose as such. If this is true, author's claim is not warranted and his suggestions will not be helpful.
Finally, the author assumes that the Endure manufacturing process is costly and concludes that profits can be increased if the manufacturing process is changed. However, this might not be the case. Perhaps, the Endure manufacturing process is the cheapest among all the manufacturing process. If this is the case, discontinuing the use of endure manufacturing process, and adoptiong another technique may incur more cost, and will decrease the profit.
In conclusion, it is possible that the conclusion made by the vice president will have intended results. However, as it stands now, the argument relied on several unwarranted assumptions that if proved wrong will severly weaken the argument. So, the author should provide additional evidences regarding the veracity of the above mentioned assumptions.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 378 350
No. of Characters: 1916 1500
No. of Different Words: 173 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.409 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.069 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.852 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.894 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.311 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 516, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...If these scenarios have merit, then the authors argument does not hold water. Secondly...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 34, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...pful. Finally, the author assumes that the Endure manufacturing process is costly and con...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 207, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...r, this might not be the case. Perhaps, the Endure manufacturing process is the cheapest a...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
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: 1970.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 378.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21164021164 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40933352052 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93865215581 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.484126984127 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.9015552054 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.8095238095 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.0 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.33333333333 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.186046526668 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0538476089121 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0520896090972 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.09988704437 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0410554804436 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.64 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => 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.