The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors.
"Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat products abound in many food stores. Since many of the food products currently marketed by Old Dairy Industries are high in fat and cholesterol, the company's sales are likely to diminish greatly and company profits will no doubt decrease. We therefore advise Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares, and other investors not to purchase stock in this company."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the advice and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the advice.
In the newsletter, the author avers that because a mojority of respondents in a survey indicated that they would prefer low-fat products, stakeholders must abandon their stocks in Old Dairy industry and should not invest any more in it. However, before heeding to the author's advice, three major questions must be answered, to check the validity of the advice.
First, how was the survey conducted and who participated in it? It is possible that a majority of respondents who were a part of the survey were already on a low fat and low cholestrol diet, maybe due to health related issues, or were prescribed a special diest by a doctor due to various reasons. If people were already on a low fat diet, they would prefer low fat products, however, there are people who need to forage high fat products due to some deficiency. If this is true, and indeed the respondents of the survey were biased, the cogency of the author's argument is rendered weakened.
Second, will Old Dairy Industries come up with new product line to be inclusive of the respondents dietary needs? Since the company now knows that people prefer food with low fat and cholestrol, the company is more likely to come up with alternative products that gives the people what they want. Since these products will specifically target the needs of people who require a low fat and cholestrol products, they might even become more profitable as compared to other products that the company might have launched in the past. If this would be the case, the case made by the author does not hold any water, and therefore investors should not follow this advice.
Finally, will people actually act on their desire of consuming low fat and cholestrol foods? The survey clearly mentions that the respondents indicated a desire to consume low fat and cholestrol products, however there is a chance that this is just a desire and not something upon which people will act on. Perhaps, they would like to reduce their intake, but wouldn't entirely give it up as assumed by the author. Therefore, the pillar upon which the author based his advice is significantly weakened. In conclusion, it is possible that Old Dairy Industries might not lose its market value completely. But additional evidence is required, especially the answers to the questions posed above to be able to say with certainty whether investors should abandon there shares in the company or not.
Issue Essay
Comments
e-rater score 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: 17 15
No. of Words: 414 350
No. of Characters: 1970 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.511 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.758 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.511 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.162 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 269, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...e in it. However, before heeding to the authors advice, three major questions must be a...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 554, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... survey were biased, the cogency of the authors argument is rendered weakened. Seco...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 361, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
... would like to reduce their intake, but wouldnt entirely give it up as assumed by the a...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, therefore, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 16.3942115768 12% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2026.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 413.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.90556900726 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50803742585 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58155441455 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.476997578692 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 637.2 705.55239521 90% => 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: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => 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: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.2438024372 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.625 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8125 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.3125 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.230864728341 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0735150701183 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0636088527648 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144300453449 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0335869210416 0.0628817314937 53% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.