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 examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the memorandum, the vice president of Health Naturally concludes that by building one of its stores at Plainville, the company will experience a tremendous profit. He arrived at this conclusion based on the peoples love for living healthy lives and the Plainsville merchant report. Though the authors assertion might prove true, however, the author needs to provide three evidence to bolster the persuasiveness of his argument.
First of all, the author tried to predict the future by assuming the past occurrence is recurrent, nevertheless, this might not be true. Perhaps the residents of Plainsville are not rich and cannot afford the goods that are being sold at Health Naturally stores. It is also possible that they will continue buying those health related products at other health stores instead of buying from Health Naturally store. Maybe the goods they do buy at those stores are cheaper and as efficient as the ones the Health Naturally stores are selling. If any of the scenarios above proves true, then the author’s prediction is untenable.
In addition to that, the author assumes that having more members joining the local health club in Plainsville equals more participation. Yet, this might not be true. It is possible that the new members just registered by putting down their names in some paper without any real interest of joining, maybe someone they know is a registered member. Even if they do have interest to join, they might not be enthusiastic enough to be participating in the training. If any of the above scenarios is true, then the vice president’s argument is seriously flawed.
Furthermore, the author assumed that the report of Plainsville merchants that the sales of running shoes and exercise equipment is very demanding in Plainsville is scientific and reliable. This might be false. How many people bought the running shoe and the exercise equipment, 3 or 100, out of how many? Without knowing the number of people at Plainsville that bought those materials we can conclude that their demands in Plainville is high. Moreover, it is possible that those merchants made that assertion to impress the vice president of Health Naturally, in order to get money from him. If any of the cases above occurred, then the author’s argument is seriously hampered.
Finally, the vice president assumed that just because people express the willingness to do something, that they are going to do it. Albeit, this might be wrong. Perhaps Plainsville school children loves exercising, but they are lazy and will not be able do it regularly and effectively for its effect to show. Even if they are willing and would love to exercise themselves regularly, the school bulky workloads and stress might preclude them from participating. If either of the above scenarios is true, then the vice president’s conclusion is strongly weakened.
In conclusion, the author’s assertion that building health related stores in Plainville will provide a very enormous profit for Health Naturally may be true. However, as it stands now, the author’s avouchment rests on three unjustified assumptions that hinders its authenticity. If the author would like to boost the persuasiveness of his conclusion, he needs to provide three additional evidence.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 528 350
No. of Characters: 2667 1500
No. of Different Words: 237 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.794 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.051 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.725 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.556 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.483 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.63 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.284 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 297, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...Plainsville merchant report. Though the authors assertion might prove true, however, th...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 314, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this health' or 'those healths'?
Suggestion: this health; those healths
...possible that they will continue buying those health related products at other health stores...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 555, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...esident’s argument is seriously flawed. Furthermore, the author assumed that the...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, so, then, thus, in addition, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2747.0 2260.96107784 121% => OK
No of words: 528.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20265151515 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79356345386 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84708356792 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 243.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.460227272727 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 827.1 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.9503266254 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.740740741 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5555555556 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.188924969334 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.055671129475 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0960447870043 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.111114312822 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0796939816156 0.0628817314937 127% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.