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.”
The author states that there’s a need for making some changes in other of the centers of a chain of video rental stores in order to avoid lowering profits, but the argument has some logic flaws and unbased assumptions.
First of all, the author states that the solution is to lessen the operating expenses, since recently profits have been decreasing. But maybe the problem is not that the expenses are high, but that the incomes are low, maybe in the recent times people were on vacation or just there weren’t many good new films that actracted consumers. The author should give us some more information on why this profits have decreased.
Secondly, the owner states that they can’t increase the prices since the acency is renowed for their lower prices. But it’s possible that every video rental stores have recently increased the prices for some external reasons, and therefore Movie Galore could still be one of the cheapest even if it increases a bit the costs. To agree with the owner, he has to ensure that the other companies haven’t changed their prices.
He then tells how he could reduce the operating costs significantly by making some changes, but he doesn’t say how “significantly” means. They could be relatively significant or absolutely significant, and in either cases it is not ensured that those lower expenses are enough to increas profits. Other than that it is not clear if this operation lowers the incomes, too. If that’s the case, then the profit may not increase: so he must say exactly what the expenses were before and how much are now, how the incomes change and then tell us if this change is enough to help the company.
Finaly he pretends that the other nine centers must follow those specific instructions, in order to get the same benefic results, but that’s not necessarily true: what works for one center may not work for the others. Thus, he must give us the motives that make him say that such modification will improve the profits for the other stores.
In the end, the conclusion can’t be taken for granted, unless the author can give us some informations: the causes of the profit decrease, the eventual changes in price of every store that rents video, the change in expenses and incomes due to the modification of the center he talks about, and the consequential change in profits, the reasons why if this operation worked once, it would work always, even in the other stores.
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: 14 15
No. of Words: 422 350
No. of Characters: 1954 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.532 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.63 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.32 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 48 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 27 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.143 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.366 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.786 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.354 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.19 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 394, Rule ID: ADVERB_WORD_ORDER[9]
Message: The adverb 'always' is usually put before the verb 'work'.
Suggestion: always work
...if this operation worked once, it would work always, even in the other stores.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, as to, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 34.0 55.5748502994 61% => 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: 2065.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 419.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92840095465 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52432199235 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71993874358 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 209.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.498806682578 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 647.1 705.55239521 92% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 87.7021862292 57.8364921388 152% => OK
Chars per sentence: 147.5 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.9285714286 23.324526521 128% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.57142857143 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => 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: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.21476657277 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0753549281061 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0433257742419 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115032807301 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0370007541546 0.0628817314937 59% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.5 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.91 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.77 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.