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 offers advice to Old Dairy Industries to sell their shares, and other investors not to purchase stock in this company because of the fat and cholesterol being highly present in their products. The advice of the author is based on the evidence provided by a survey where more than 80 percent of the respondents indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterols. While the recommendation by the author seems persuasive, it is based on three unwarranted assumptions, if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument. Thus, the following three questions must be answered.
First, was the survey conducted with the proper scientific approach? If the survey was based on a non-representative sample, then the result concluded from the study cannot be regarded as significant. It is possible that the study collected most of the data from overweight or obese respondents who have their own health issue that makes them inclined to a reduction in weight. Thus, the responses collected from those respondents would be biased towards an answer maintaining reducing their fat intake and cholesterol-controlling foods. If the author doesn't provide enough evidence regarding sample respondents, then the conclusion drawn based on this survey does not hold water.
Secondly, Is there any evidence available if the companies of those low-fat products which abound in food stores have started to gain significantly larger profits than the Old Dairy Industries? The advice of the author indicates selling Old Dairy shares and other investors not to purchase stock in this industry. But the investors and stockholders cannot rely on only one survey result to take such decisions. The stockholders and investors must require financial data regarding profit in both high-fat products and low-fat products and compare them to reach a decision. But the author of the newsletter doesn’t provide such financial evidence to make such advice to the stockholders and investors. Hence, it is required to provide further evidence regarding profit and revenues from both kinds of industries.
Finally, the argument does not mention any information regarding the percentage of products from Old Dairy Industries which contain high fats. The author says that many of the products from that industry are high in fat and cholesterol. It may be possible that the percentage of high fat and cholesterol products is relatively low with respect to the large variation of products in that industries. Old Dairy Industries may produce many more other products not containing high fat and cholesterol. So, even if the study provides valid evidence about the product choice from the respondents, the other products of Old Dairy Industries may be responsible for a high revenue after experiencing low sales in their high fat and cholesterol products.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unfounded assumptions. If the author is able to answer the above three questions and offer more evidence, then it will possible to fully evaluate the viability of the advice referred by the author.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 509 350
No. of Characters: 2647 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.75 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.2 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.978 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 193 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.136 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.109 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 552, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...sterol-controlling foods. If the author doesnt provide enough evidence regarding sampl...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, hence, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, in conclusion, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2701.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 507.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.32741617357 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74517233601 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.06343196181 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455621301775 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 831.6 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.5906268985 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.772727273 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0454545455 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.40909090909 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.315115459605 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0952864020466 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0929704307615 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166003608621 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0908476648822 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => 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: 13.93 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.