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 owner of movie-rental cooperation, wrote an argument saying that to increase profits, stores should reduce operating expenses by removing outdated movies and reducing operating hours. He mentions that the practice of those policies have not brought much complaints from the customers. However, before properly evaluating his claim, three questions have to be answered.
First of all, although Marston store may have reduced its operating costs, there are no evidence if it has earned more profit. The owner says that they received only few of customer complaints, but did not give any proof saying that the profits of the store improved. It could be that the store lost customers and the profits decreased. Even if the store improved earning profits in the short-term, customers can turn away gradually and lead to loss of profit in the long-term. For the author to strengthen his point, more substantiative data about profits should be provided regarding the downtown Marston store.
Second of all, is it safe to say that the Marston’s practice can be simply applied to stores in other places? Every store is located in different places with variety of users varying from their incomes, habits, and preferences. For example, Marston store might be located in downtown, surrounded by office buildings where many workers(commuters) disappear after working hours. During the day, the town can be crowded, but at the evening, the town can turn into a quiet place with few people. This could mean that shortening the opened hours did not affect the Marston store significantly, without loosing users or profits. However, other stores’ situation might be different if they are located in residual areas where people want to rent videos at night after they come home. To bolster the owner’s suggestion, more data about each store and the effects of changing closing hours must be assessed carefully on each of them.
Third of all, did the chain provide sufficient methods to receive voice of customers? Marston’s change of policy might have disappointed customers but they might have not expressed their dissatisfaction to the company. There can be some customers who simply do not want to express their opinions because of their personality or due to lack of time. Therefore, to strengthen the author’s idea, a proper survey regarding the policy change and its satisfaction must be conducted.
In conclusion, as it stands now, the memorandum’s suggestion is seriously flawed and need some extra research and data to prove its validity. The chain should conduct survey on customers to see if the policy change will be viable and carefully consider the stores which could adopt the policy. After changing policies will not affect customers’ satisfaction levels and their will to visit is found out, then they can adopt those policy considering to improve profits.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2343 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.071 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.601 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.4 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 254, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...tice of those policies have not brought much complaints from the customers. However,...
^^^^
Line 5, column 424, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this policy' or 'those policies'?
Suggestion: this policy; those policies
...visit is found out, then they can adopt those policy considering to improve profits.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 437, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[3]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'considering improving'.
Suggestion: considering improving
...d out, then they can adopt those policy considering to improve profits.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, third, for example, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2417.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2316017316 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74162802739 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.532467532468 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 729.0 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 27.9132733023 57.8364921388 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 109.863636364 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.31818181818 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.171604230829 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0523990304383 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0669092240243 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102787385201 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0775088718094 0.0628817314937 123% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.