The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"In order to reverse the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Since we are famous for our special bargains, raising our rental prices is not a viable way to improve profits. Last month our store in downtown Marston significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years ago. Therefore, in order to increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices, we recommend implementing similar changes in our other nine Movies Galore stores."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
Although the memorandum reasoning might seem logical at first glance, there are some underlying assumptions that, if false, would make the entire argument fallacious. First, it is important to understand the impacts in the revenues indicators generated by the reduction of the operating hours and by the stock reduction. Second, it is cardinal to have more information about geospatial differences.
The memorandum offers no evidence than reducing the expenses in the downtown store improved the profit and it is totally possible that the measures adopted have a negative impact in the revenue, thus, negatively impacting the profit behaviour. In this sense, it is crucial to understand what was the revenue decrease derived from the changing operating hours. It is plausible that, as we are talking of a store in downtown, most of the sells were accomplished exactly between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm, since is the spare time of people working in the neighborhood. In other words, it is important to answer what was the impact of the measures in the revenues indicators.
Secondly, the measure related with reducing the stock might also have a negative impact in the revenues, affecting once again the profit results. In fact, the memorandum should offer more information about what percent did the old movies represented from the total parcel of the rentals. For instance, if old movies were responsible for 25% or more of the rentals, the reduced cost might not be high enough to cover the revenue lost. Therefore, as stated for the changing hours, the stock measure has also impacts in the revenues. In other words, as profit is the revenues less the costs, if the measures adopted had higher impacts in the revenues the result might be the opposite as the expected one. The company needs to shed light into the revenue impacts in order to assess whether the measures were effective and efficient or not.
Lastly, before expanding the recommendation into the 9 others stores, it is important to look for specifics that might exist among the stores located in different neighborhoods. Maybe, some locations are more willing to pay a little bit more for more broad operating hours. In addition, perhaps, some locations are more interested in old movies than others. Hence, it is fundamental that more information about the stores is offered before deciding anything about what to do with the stores.
Therefore, even if the argument could be true, there are some information that need to be added before choosing to expand the recommendation. This questions can show that the memorandum is flawed and based in spourious reasoning. Hence, before replicating the policy adopted in downtown, it is fundamental to answer at least four topics: what was the effect in the revenues? How were the sells distributed among the operating hours? What percentage did the old movies represented from the total? Are there important differences among the stores that need to be taken into account before expanding the policy?
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 23 15
No. of Words: 495 350
No. of Characters: 2451 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.717 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.952 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.671 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 178 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.522 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.706 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 400, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...formation about geospatial differences. The memorandum offers no evidence than r...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 239, Rule ID: DID_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean 'represent'?
Suggestion: represent
...n about what percent did the old movies represented from the total parcel of the rentals. F...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 227, Rule ID: LITTLE_BIT[1]
Message: Reduce redundancy by using 'little' or 'bit'.
Suggestion: little; bit
...ome locations are more willing to pay a little bit more for more broad operating hours. In...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 469, Rule ID: DID_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean 'represent'?
Suggestion: represent
...urs? What percentage did the old movies represented from the total? Are there important dif...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, at least, for instance, in addition, in fact, talking of, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2542.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 493.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15618661258 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71206996034 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74252553183 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470588235294 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 797.4 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9563712207 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.52173913 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4347826087 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.91304347826 5.70786347227 121% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.11541080387 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0354817661406 0.0743258471296 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0387723623921 0.0701772020484 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0632797482271 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0158852253196 0.0628817314937 25% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => 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: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.