The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits."
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 argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the author rests the argument on foundationless assumptions including the locations of Movies Galore mirror the factors of one another, customers are willing to give feedback and prices of the movies are unchanging. Concluding the adopting of the policies of another location will surely improve profits based on the prior stated assumptions is unreasonable.
Firstly, the arguer fails to provide evidence to support the similarities between Marston and other Movie Galore chains. It is mentioned by the author that the Marston store is located in the downtown. There is a possibility that downtown Marston is the epicenter of a majority of office jobs for that population and most offices close around 5 p.m. If this were the case, then closing the shop at 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. would be beneficial because most of the workers have left their jobs to go home. If other stores of Movie Galore are on the outskirts of the cities, then it cannot be guaranteed that reducing the open hours of the store would be beneficial. On the other hand, if the author presented information that confirmed all locations of Movie Galore were set in the downtowns of cities, the argument would deem to be more plausible. In either case, it cannot be said that all downtowns are similar to one another.
Additionally, the argument neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine, all shops are of identical settings, it is still baseless to assume by integrating an identical policy will result in success for the company because of the perceived decline in customer complaints. So, the author continues to speculate no other factors are playing a role in the declining profits of Movie Galore. Not every individual is willing to speak up and mention their complaints or opinions to those working in the stores. There is a possibility that the citizens of Marston are quite reserved and unwilling to share their thoughts with others. Then, this would mean they are less inclined to complain to others which would render the argument unreliable since it would not be an accurate representation of the complaints of the locals. However, if the argument providing concrete data illustrating that the people of Marston are overly open and honest about their preferences, then it would hold more validity. But even so, individuals of the world have diverse personalities and it is unlikely that an area will encompass the same types of people.
Lastly, the argument is built upon undescriptive statements. Take into consideration the following statement: “Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices.” The author suggests that prices in all settings of the company have similar price trends. It could be that one location is in Los Angles, California and another is in Austin, Texas. The cost of living in these two areas are distinctively different than one another and the prices of movie rentals would also differ. Since the arguer does not entail the branches of Movie Galore, it is difficult to guarantee the increase in profit.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions made be the argument, the author is unsuccessful is compiling a compelling case to believe adopting the same guidelines in all locations of Movie Galore will prove to increase profits.
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: 24 15
No. of Words: 556 350
No. of Characters: 2750 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.856 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.946 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.733 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 212 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.633 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.282 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.465 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 438, Rule ID: RATHER_THEN[2]
Message: Did you mean 'different 'from''? 'Different than' is often considered colloquial style.
Suggestion: from
...e two areas are distinctively different than one another and the prices of movie ren...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, so, still, then, even so, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 38.0 19.6327345309 194% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2821.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 556.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07374100719 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85588840946 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82080163652 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 273.0 204.123752495 134% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.491007194245 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 900.0 705.55239521 128% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.438476335 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.652173913 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1739130435 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.52173913043 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.231682044598 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0627372636395 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0700286474312 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.132271785677 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0563487328635 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.94 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 145.0 98.500998004 147% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.