The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods:
"Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
In this annual report, the author concludes that Olympic foods,a processor of frozen foods is expected to have minimized costs and maximized profits because of its 25 years of experience in the industry. The author drew the conclusion based on the example of color film processing industry, which had been able to drop the cost of 3-by-5 inch print from 50 cents for five-day services in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day services in 1984. However, in my opinion, I don't think the author's conclusion is convincing enough and the reasons are as following:
First of all, this argument commits a fallacy of oversimplification. The author just simply applies the principle from color film processing to food processing and he fails to analyze the situations in between the two different industries peer to peer. For example, the decreased cost of color film processing may be because of the improved technology of photo printing,which is not related to the food processing at all.
Second, the author commits a fallacy of false analogy. Those two industries are complete different from each other, the color film processing is more about the printing technology and film rolls while the food processing involves big processing machine, transportation and food storage. It's possible that color film processing can drop the cost very easily as the technology becomes more sophisticated and the rolls become cheaper, and it's more complicated to forecast the cost and profit changes in food processing industry as there're too many expects related to the whole process.
Third, the author should provide more evidence to support this argument. For example, the author should focus more on analyzing advantages and disadvantages the Olympic foods itself, then use a reasonable measurement to forecast the company's performance in its 25th birthday. After all, no one can guarantee that a company will become better as time goes by if the operation and management of the company are not on the right track.
In summary, I don't agree with this argument, because the argument creates problems of oversimplification, false analogy and insufficient evidence. To make the argument more reasonable, the author should take more detailed analyse into account.
Comments
argument 1 -- OK
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 8 15
No. of Words: 364 350
No. of Characters: 1844 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.368 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.066 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.827 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 45.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 27.345 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.439 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.752 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 63, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , a
... the author concludes that Olympic foods,a processor of frozen foods is expected t...
^^
Line 1, column 462, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ices in 1984. However, in my opinion, I dont think the authors conclusion is convinc...
^^^^
Line 1, column 477, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...owever, in my opinion, I dont think the authors conclusion is convincing enough and the...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 370, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , which
...he improved technology of photo printing,which is not related to the food processing a...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 529, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there are
... changes in food processing industry as therere too many expects related to the whole p...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 15, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...t on the right track. In summary, I dont agree with this argument, because the a...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, second, so, then, third, while, after all, for example, in summary, first of all, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.6327345309 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1893.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 359.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.27298050139 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.35284910392 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92955971517 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.532033426184 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 589.5 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.9170613327 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.615384615 119.503703932 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.6153846154 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.23076923077 5.70786347227 162% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.178219824839 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0641597149218 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0554940718263 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0953611264801 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0338236067719 0.0628817314937 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.2 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.58 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.15 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.