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.
Basing on a survey which suggested a preference of people in low-fat and low-cholesterol foods and the fact that Old Diary Industries produced mainly the opposite, the author infer that the profit of the company will surely decrease. Accordingly, he/she suggested the stakeholders and investors to either sell or not purchase at the first place the stock of the company. Although there is chance that this inference holds true, some questions need to be answered before it is logically valid.
To begin with, the first question arise is whether the sample the survey took are necessarily representative of the Old Diary Industries' main consumers. The author provides no information regarding the demographics of the respondents nor the sampling method. It is possible that the survey was conducted on the members of a gym, therefore only those who care about the healthiness of their intakes. In this case, the responses from the participants cannot reflect the attitude of mass public, thus no inference could be made based on the survey. Moreover, there isn't any evidence that a percentage of 80% is higher than the past. Therefore, we need to ask if the need in the market for food nutrition have changed at all. If the percentage remains the same as the past, then there's no ground that the sale for the Old Diary Industries is sure to diminish.
Granted that the preference of the public on food choice does change towards a healthier one, we need to ask if this necessarily lead to a decline in sales of Old Diary Industries' products? Sometimes the stated preference of the consumer does not reflect their buying behaviours. If the consumer of the company's products just wish to eat a lighter food, but cannot control themselves from eating the high-fat ones, then there would be no influence on the company' sale performance.
Even if the company's sale on high-fat and high-choleterol products do decrease, we need to know if the profit for the company must decrease? First, we do not know if these products are the only ones of the company, even if "many" products are unhealthy ones. If the company have other products that feature a balanced diet, then it is well likely that the company could still make huge profit from them, or even more as a result for people's change in dieting habit. Second, there is no reason why the company cannot change its products towards what is popular in the market. In this case, the company may be competitive because of its wide recognition from the public.
In conclusion, a number of questions need to be answered before the author's argument can be well justified, including the reliability of the survey, the ability to generalise it to the general public, the extent to which people's attitude can turn into buying behaviours, and the company's strategic plan.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Also need to argue:
We therefore advise Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares, and other investors not to purchase stock in this company.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 478 350
No. of Characters: 2286 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.676 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.782 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.686 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.158 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.195 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.545 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.17 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 564, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...de based on the survey. Moreover, there isnt any evidence that a percentage of 80% i...
^^^^
Line 3, column 777, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...tage remains the same as the past, then theres no ground that the sale for the Old Dia...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 429, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[1]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...ake huge profit from them, or even more as a result for peoples change in dieting ...
^^
Line 9, column 70, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...uestions need to be answered before the authors argument can be well justified, includi...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 187, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
...ey, the ability to generalise it to the general public, the extent to which peoples attitude c...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, but, first, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, in conclusion, as a result, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2360.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95798319328 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77561241112 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.491596638655 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 740.7 705.55239521 105% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.3053473042 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.210526316 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0526315789 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.57894736842 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.131701251233 0.218282227539 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0406432286214 0.0743258471296 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0413390096322 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0741227452411 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0329595466503 0.0628817314937 52% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => 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.