The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.
"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers. Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to
evaluate the recommendation.
The Board of Directors of Monarch Books has recommended that it opens a cafe in its store to attract more customers and better compete with it's rival Regal Books. To assert their recommendation, they addressed two major issues: the space required and customer attraction. Space can be made by discontinuing children's section and as for customer attraction, the store already has a large customer base, and opening the cafe will only bring in more people. However, these claims look good superficially but when analysed in-depth, multiple unwarranted assumptions portray otherwise.
The directors have decided to discontinue children's section to open the cafe but they have not acknowledged the percentage of the current sales from selling to children. What percentage do these sales account for in the total? Is it insignificant or is it large enough to create a lapse in the profit of the enterprise? To validate this part of the argument, a survey of the age group of people visiting the store would be quite useful. The result of the national census would carry no value if the majority of sales are from children in Monarch Books. This decision will only lead to a decline in sales and consequently the profit of the company.
Another assumption the Board has made is that by opening a cafe, it will attract more customers. But they have not addressed the issue of retaining the existing customers. Will opening a cafe avert some existing customers? Some people might visit the store because of the peace and silence it provides. The existing customers might prefer this store as they can read in solitary. But by opening a cafe, the whole place will be bustling with activity and some people might choose to avoid visiting it. If so, this evidence weakens the recommendation.
It is also established that Regal Books have recently opened a cafe, but the success of the store after the opening is not given. If Regal Books have faced a decline in their sales, then this would completely be in opposition to the prediction that the directors have arrived at. This detail is very important in strengthening or weakening the board's claim.
To conclude, opening a store might look like a great idea from an outside perspective to enlarge business of the store, but much thought and consideration needs to be put before taking this decision. As stated above, the existing pieces of evidence are not sufficiently valid and it would be in the good interest of the store that the Board reevaluates the claim and provide enough supporting arguments such as surveys before jumping to a conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2119 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.86 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.689 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.763 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.516 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, however, if, look, so, then, as for, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2172.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98165137615 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75789185995 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477064220183 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 696.6 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.3763521854 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.7272727273 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8181818182 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.13636363636 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => 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: 0.262985788408 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0710526149938 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0780677039545 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.14495329701 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0691596377522 0.0628817314937 110% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => 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.