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.
In making argument, the owner of Movies Galore assumes that increasing prices of its rental videos decreases its reputation of offering movies at cheaper prices. But we are not given any clarification whether other stores of rental videos were increasing their prices or not. If other stores increased their prices, Movies Galore could also increase its prices to relatively smaller extent. Thus it could still maintain its reputation of selling rental videos at cheaper prices. It is also not mentioned what is the exact reason for decline in their profits. If the reason was increase in store’s maintaining costs like electricity bills or employee wages or rent of their stores, it is obvious that consumers could understand it and thereby increasing the prices shouldn’t contribute to spoiling of their reputation.
If the reason for decline in profits is reduction in their sales, reducing opening hours of stores or reducing its stock doesn’t help to increase their profits. Instead they can adopt effective advertising methods, costumer friendly methods like delivering rental videos to their homes, some gifts to their costumers, friendly salesmen.
In argument the owner just mentioned that the Marston store decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6pm instead of 9pm and by reducing its stock by eliminating movie released before 5 years ago, but there is no clarification whether the store actually increased its profits by adopting such methods. We cannot say that my merely reducing operating expense we can increase our profits, because such methods can decrease sales. For example, there is clarity about the highest sales time of a day. Like there is a probability of students, working consumers buying rental videos after their college or work i.e., mostly at evenings. So, closing the stores at 6pm may reduce its sales by great amount. By eliminating movies that were released 5 years before, they can reduce their sales to some extent and their reputation of selling wide range of videos.
In the arguments the owner assumes by adopting similar methods of Marston store in other 9 stores. They could increase profits. But there are no evidences that lifer style of cities of other 9 stores is exactly similar as Marston. For example, in cities, people tend to shop at evenings rather than at mornings. By closing stores at 6pm, they can reduce their sales to larger extent than in Marston. Even there is no that people buy more recent movies than older movies. The situation can be rather different.
So, instead of reducing its operating expenses, Movies Galore can increase its advertisements, prices to relatively smaller extent, adopt costumer friendly methods, thereby increasing their sales and thus profits.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.0 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2247 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.049 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.514 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.227 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.22 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 392, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ts prices to relatively smaller extent. Thus it could still maintain its reputation ...
^^^^
Line 2, column 166, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Instead,
...'t help to increase their profits. Instead they can adopt effective advertising me...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 414, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...r extent than in Marston. Even there is no that people buy more recent movies than...
^^
Line 5, column 214, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ncreasing their sales and thus profits.
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, if, may, so, still, thus, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2322.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 442.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25339366516 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58517132086 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6334841629 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.447963800905 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 720.9 705.55239521 102% => 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: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.2068438921 57.8364921388 118% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.545454545 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0909090909 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.63636363636 5.70786347227 46% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => 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: 0.230264660695 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0749223167397 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0567350407663 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141561494986 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0502910122641 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.45 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.