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 the memorandum by the owner of the Movies Galore, he/she suggests reducing the operating expenses at the ten movie-rental stores. The decision is taken with the view of coping up with the declining profits. However, the decision by the owner is based on several underlying assumptions and should not be brought to practice without due consideration.
Rather than figuring out the ultimate causes of declining profits, the owner chooses to reduce the operating costs. Also, the contribution of each of the ten stores in the profits or towards declining profits is unclear. It is probable that only the stores in some areas are prone to redcued customer interactions. Numerous external factors can influence the customers from refraining to rent movies from such stores. One of them could be the coming up of a new moive-rental store in the locality. Since the new store offers better deals, the customers are drawn towards it more than the old stores. Moreover, the rising trend of mutiplexes also prevents the local people from renting movies and rather enjyoing watching them in theatres. Hence, without accounting for these factors, the owner cannot put the onus of declining profits on the operating expenses.
Still, the owner has implemented this strategy in one of the stores in downtown Marston. He/she argues that reducing the operating hours from 9 pm to 6 pm has not led to any customer complaints. However, there is no mention of the effect of this decision on the problem at the disposal i.e. the declining profits. In addition, the impact of reducing the overall inventory by no longer storing DVDs older than five years is not clearly articulated. Although these new policies didn't lead to customers complaints in this area, one cannot expect similar results in other areas. What if the customer in this area were mainly young people who are not interested in watching old movies? What if the people is this locality are retire early in the evening? Although these characteristics of the customers in helping the movie-rental store in the downtown Marston, it cannot be taken for granted for all the other areas.
Lastly, the owner conlcudes that based on his/her arguments, the strategies mentioned by him/her are the best strategies for improving the profits. Without a diligent analysis of all the external and internal influencing reasons for declining profits, the owner is at a fault in calling it the 'best' solution. If there are no other solutions brought to the table, there is nothing that challenges this solution.
In conlusion, the strategies provided by the owner is flawed due to aforementioned reasons. If further analysis is carried out by considering all the impacting factors, then only the owner can convincingly claim his/her stands and solutions for the declining profits.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 24 15
No. of Words: 467 350
No. of Characters: 2298 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.649 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.921 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.683 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.458 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.082 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.289 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.48 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 477, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...rticulated. Although these new policies didnt lead to customers complaints in this ar...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 721, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... What if the people is this locality are retire early in the evening? Although th...
^^
Line 5, column 723, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'retired'.
Suggestion: retired
...hat if the people is this locality are retire early in the evening? Although these ch...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, lastly, moreover, so, still, then, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2361.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 461.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12147505423 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63367139033 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76692330882 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.466377440347 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 726.3 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 27.7548794509 57.8364921388 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 98.375 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2083333333 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.20833333333 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.265556126765 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0749783169109 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.110668078259 0.0701772020484 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.15727192621 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.107452913594 0.0628817314937 171% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.