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.
The vice president, in the memorandum, suggest that they open a new store in Plainsvile ot maximize their profits. He bases his recommendation based the high sales of running shoes and exercise equipment in the area, number of people in the local health club and a fitness program in the schools that require their children to participate in it. However, before the recommendation can be properly evaluted, one require further pieces of evidence as explicated below.
Firstly, the vice president fallaciously assumes that the people's penchant for running shoes and exercise in the locality is directly correlated with the consumption of health foods. However, this may not be true. In contrast, there is a possibility that the people, who make sure to stay healthy by exercising regulary, are equally conscious to consume healthy diet. Such practices would obliviate the need for health supplements. Thus, one need to be cognizant of food habits of the people as well in order to appraise the profitability of the store.
Secondly, the merchants reported only the sales of running shoes and exercise equipment but not their usage in the locality. People generally buy exercise equipment enthusiastically but fail to put them to proper use. The reasons for such scenario vary - from lacking sufficient time to exercise to corporate life to losing motivation once they realise the pain that goes into using them. Hence, it is imperative to know if the people who buy exercise equipment are using them to stay fit or they dump the equipment in a store room. If the above scenario has merit, then the author's argument is significantly weakened.
Moreover, the author claims that the local health club has more numbers than ever before. However, the author does not specify the absolute number of people in the club. There is a possibility that the club has only ten members, which is the maximum number since its inception. Additionally, the club might be advocating healthy food over supplements for a healthy living. People generally stigmatize health food with side-effects or unnecessary financial burden. Therefore, one needs to understand the absolute number of the health club as well as the its perception of health food supplements to conclude if the store will be profitable or not. If the health club in the state as described above, the author's prediction that their store would be profitable in the area would fall flat on its face.
Therefore, the argument, as it stands, is upersuasive as it does not provide any evidence regarding the food habits of the poeple in Plainsville, how often do they use the purchased running shoes and exercise equipment, and the absolute size and the practices of the local health club.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 450 350
No. of Characters: 2230 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.606 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.956 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.745 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.121 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.117 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 59, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'peoples'' or 'people's'?
Suggestion: peoples'; people's
...president fallaciously assumes that the peoples penchant for running shoes and exercise...
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 576, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... the above scenario has merit, then the authors argument is significantly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 550, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'its'?
Suggestion: the; its
...te number of the health club as well as the its perception of health food supplements t...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 704, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ub in the state as described above, the authors prediction that their store would be pr...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, in contrast, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2308.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 450.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12888888889 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6057793516 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8159348428 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488888888889 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 727.2 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.0462675728 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.904761905 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4285714286 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.71428571429 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.164941976237 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0531859838035 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0582184615997 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0939332066419 0.128457276422 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0532108937367 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.