‘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 following memorandum from Movies Galore’s owner suggests that in order to ameliorate the decline in profits, changes implemented in the downtown location should be done in the other nine locations. However, the owner’s argument is based on assumptions that are rife with flaws. Therefore, to strengthen the validity of his argument, a thorough consideration is needed, with more evidence provided.
The owner noted that by eliminating all movies that were released more than five years ago, it would help reverse declines for Movies Galore. However, the owner does not provide evidence that this helped in raising profit. As well, perhaps the population visiting or living in downtown is made up of a majority in a younger age group, who enjoy newly released movies. This does not provide enough reason for the owner to implement the change across all other locations—what if customers frequenting another location enjoy old-school movies and do not care for recently released ones? Thus, the owner should provide evidence that limiting the store’s movie selection to new movies benefited the store in reversing its decline of profits, as well as that people across all ten locations enjoy these movies more than the ones released more than five years ago.
Taking a look at the bigger picture, in the memorandum, the owner states that there has been a recent decline in Movies Galore’s profits. He/she does not further indicate a reason or a hypothesis as to why this may be. Perhaps there should be an examination of why there’s been a sudden decline in the profits. Is it because of the choice of movies available that no one likes? Or the movies have not been updated, and with a limited selection, no one wants to go to Movies Galore anymore? It does not seem that the owner takes this into consideration. A better look into the problem, maybe with a survey for customers to analyze their responses, would help make the situation clearer.
Another assumption the owner makes is making the closing time three hours earlier than before. In downtown, many people are there during the day, either working, visiting or travelling. Therefore, it is possible that an earlier closing time would not pose a problem, as many people may still visit the store during the daytime. On the contrary, that is not guaranteed for stores in the other nine locations. For some stores that are located in a more suburban area, where people go home in the evening after work, it would be impossible for them to go to Movies Galore to rent movies. Thus, the owner should consider the different populations in the areas his/her stores are situated in, to better assess the preferences of the customers.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- better to put this inside argument 1
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need more arguments:
1. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices.
2. 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.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 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: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2182 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.796 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.451 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.763 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.482 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
however, if, look, may, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, as to, as well as, on the contrary, as well as that
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2270.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 452.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.02212389381 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61088837703 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69463577259 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.486725663717 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 730.8 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.0628256351 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.095238095 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5238095238 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.47619047619 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.270095266863 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0845850857165 0.0743258471296 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0956670249062 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.178040907313 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0783207474752 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.84 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.