The following appeared as a memorandum from the vice-president of the Dolci candy company: “Given the success of our premium and most expensive line of chocolate candies in a recent taste test and the consequent increase in sales, we should shift our business focus to producing additional lines of premium candy rather than our lower-priced, ordinary candies. When the current economic boom ends and consumers can no longer buy major luxury items, such as cars, they will still want to indulge in small luxuries, such as expensive candies.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
The argument claims that the Dolci candy company should decrease producing lower-priced candy in order to sell more expensive line of chocolate candies because consumers will always want to buy expensive candies, even though they do not have much money. This conclusion, based solely on one assumption, is doubtful, as it does not provide any clear information. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
First of all, the vice-president assumes that, if economic boom ends, people will still buy expensive candies of the Dolci company, but it is illogical. If recession starts in economy, people will refuse buying anything what they do not really need in order to save money. All their purchases will be defined by biological needs and a wish to eat candies will be changed to the cheapest candies, but not to expensive.
Secondly, the author fails to mention that there is a correlation between increasing in sales and economic boom. However, there is no clear information about the demand on this type of products, thus it is possible to say that this growth in sales maybe influence by seasons factors such as holidays.
Finally, the argument could have been much clearer if it provided the information of any research not only about the demand on luxury candies, but also about a market share of the Dolci candy company, because lower-priced candies can people also popular among people. This type of product can help the company to stay afloat in the situation of the crisis.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. To strengthen the memorandum the author should have to provide more evidence. Without this information, the argument unsubstantiated and open to debate.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 286 350
No. of Characters: 1433 1500
No. of Different Words: 154 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.112 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.01 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.719 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 106 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 81 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.735 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.629 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.032 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1483.0 2260.96107784 66% => OK
No of words: 286.0 441.139720559 65% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.18531468531 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11236361783 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82639703882 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.552447552448 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 465.3 705.55239521 66% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.4984973964 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.076923077 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.3846153846 5.70786347227 199% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.152321389059 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0453094689212 0.0743258471296 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0649871449049 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0768217248908 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0495847900691 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.