The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of
video rental stores.
“In order to reverse the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at
Movies Galore’s ten video 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 addressed in order to
decide whether implementing the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result and
explain how the answers to those questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author here tries to come up with a new method to reduce the operating costs at the Movies Galore renting facilities and claims that early closing time and reducing collections can help achieve the same across all the branches. Stating that this has helped them reduce the costs for the downtown Marston facility and might help at other outlets as well, shows that they fail to mention several key factors, also reveal several instances of poor reasoning, and distorts the view of the situation by manipulating the facts and providing weak claims. To garner support, they suggest it worked in a downtown store, hence the few changes to the store timings and movie collections can be trusted in all branches. However further scrutiny of the evidence will reveal that it provides little credible support for the author’s claims. Hence the overall argument seems incomplete and unsubstantiated.
Firstly, the author’s largest leap is when they state that the changes have reduced the operational costs significantly, but they fail to mention whether the store is still profitable or not. If even after all of this, the stores remain in debt, then it weakens the arguments quite substantially, on the other hand if they show a positive and hopeful rise and it will bolster their claims as well. In accordance with this, one might also think that what works in downtown Marston, has no guarantee of working in other places as well as it did there. Thus, for a better shot at increasing the profits the store owners should have an ehaustive discussion with the customers, as to what time or what genre and type of movies would best suit them and come up with a strategy to change timings/collections accordingly. For maximum revenue increase, this study needs to be done before implementing any changes at any franchise outlet. Say, Movie’s Galore outlet in Mumbai tries to shut shop at 6 pm, then it might even kill the little sales they had as most of the working professionals tend to leave offices after 7 pm, and renting movies would have been quite tedious. Or, they open up a store in a senior citizen dominated part of town and stop having older movies, then how are they expected to make high sales numbers there?
Secondly, if Movies Galore prides itself in renting movies at a low price, then they should attempt at increasing the total cart amount per customer. They can manage to acheive this, by slightly increasing the prize for solo movies, but create lucrative offers for multiple CD’s at the same time, causing the customer to be lured in by the offer and buy something they initially didn’t want. This can help them keep the motto alive while increasing their revenue significantly. Finally, before concluding, most of the people working at such stores usually part time shifts, thus decreasing the time can cause a decrease in their pay. Causing them to take other jobs and cause a stress on their mental and physical health over a longer period.
While the argument put forward by the researcher, is quite innovative and interesting, the data presented could have been more exhaustive in order to convince the reader. In conclusion, the author’s arguments seem unpersuasive and to make bolster their claims, the author should have more concrete evidence and analysis for to determine the hypothesis is the best to reduce the costs for Movies Galore.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 573 350
No. of Characters: 2742 1500
No. of Different Words: 292 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.893 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.785 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.456 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 194 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.158 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.659 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.286 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 713, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...ections can be trusted in all branches. However further scrutiny of the evidence will r...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 832, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...edible support for the author’s claims. Hence the overall argument seems incomplete a...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 556, Rule ID: EN_COMPOUNDS
Message: This word is normally spelled with hyphen.
Suggestion: part-time
...e people working at such stores usually part time shifts, thus decreasing the time can ca...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, thus, well, while, after all, as to, in conclusion, as well as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2815.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 571.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9299474606 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88831323574 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61410861996 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 296.0 204.123752495 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.518388791594 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 859.5 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 64.3858262822 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 148.157894737 119.503703932 124% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.0526315789 23.324526521 129% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.73684210526 5.70786347227 171% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14043380572 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0460436265105 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0455012933811 0.0701772020484 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0879682223804 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0297854310145 0.0628817314937 47% => 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: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.91 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.