The following appeared in a memorandum written by the vice president of Health Naturally, a small but expanding chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products.
"Our previous experience has been that our stores are most profitable in areas where residents are highly concerned with leading healthy lives. We should therefore build one of our new stores in Plainsville, which clearly has many such residents. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise equipment are at all-time highs. The local health club, which nearly closed five years ago due to lack of business, has more members than ever, and the weight-training and aerobics classes are always full. We can even anticipate a new generation of customers: Plainsville's schoolchildren are required to participate in a program called Fitness for Life, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age."
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 a memorandum, the vice president of Health Naturally, a chain of stores selling health food and products recommended that they should build one of their new branches in Plainsville. This conclusion is based on many reasons including higher level of sale of equipment related to health, the increase of the members in local health club and more children at school participating in health program. However, before this recommendation is properly evaluated, three problems should be elucidated.
First of all, the higher level of sales of shoes and exercise equipment does not mean that new branches can gain success in Plainsville. The main reason is that vogue of these products depends on many factors such as the interest of customers, different seasons, and influence from public figures. These factors are unpredictable, thus they can put the company in danger if they open the new store based on these data. Therefore, if this reason has merit, the conclusion drawn in the original argument can be significantly hampered.
Secondly, it is quite difficult to infer the success of the company because of more members participating in local health club and the full attendance in weight-training and aerobics classes. The number of health clubs is limited, then there is less choice for people to go in for these class, while the number of people having their preference related to health activities is likely to be still low. If the above is true, the do not hold water.
Finally, there is no reason why the author can extrapolate the next generation of customers which are schoolchildren because they are required to join in a program called Fitness for Life. In fact, a majority of customers of stores selling products related to health are adults or the elderly, while the number of children at school is not significantly. therefore, it is difficult to warrant the success of the business based on mandatory participation of children in the health program. These reasons can damage substantially the credibility of the argument.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumption. If the author can resolve these problems and offer more evidence, it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to open more branches in Plainsville.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 382 350
No. of Characters: 1913 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.421 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.008 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.869 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 147 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.632 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.316 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.033 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 424, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
... to be still low. If the above is true, the do not hold water. Finally, there is no ...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 356, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Therefore
...hildren at school is not significantly. therefore, it is difficult to warrant the success...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, while, in conclusion, in fact, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1963.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 382.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1387434555 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.42095241839 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97255429805 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.492146596859 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.4714800166 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.6875 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.875 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.3125 5.70786347227 146% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.202917070869 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0652376294557 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0983695772183 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114267311807 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.105136857499 0.0628817314937 167% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.37 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.