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 argument claims that if opening a cafe in Monarch Books will attract more customers and should be able to compete with the other bookstore. And the author suggests that the children's book section can be used as the cafe space since the decline of the population under age ten. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which has no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that opening a cafe would attract more customers because Monarch Books has a large customer base, for it has been in business for more than years. This statement is a strech that having a customer base for bookstore is equally for a cafe. For example, if there are already several chain coffee shops near the book store, customers may tend to go to the cafes they are familiar with. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly states the market status quo to show if there is still need for more cafes.
Second, the argument claims that the children's book section can be replaced for the cafe space because the population under age ten decreases. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the claim does not demonstrate the proportion of the customers. For instance, if Monarch Books locates in a residential area rather than the business area, where most customers may be families with kids. If the argument had provided evidence that kids are not the main customers of the bookstore, then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, the author apparently concerns about the competition with Regal Books. However, the argument fails to do a more clear observation of the marketing position of the two bookstores. Regal Books may have only business books to attract businessmen, so a cafe space would be necessary for their customers. Moreover, it doesn't show that cafe does attract more customers in Regal Books. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substansive evidence.
In order to assess the merits of a certain decision, it is essential to have full knowledge of the contributing factors. In this particular case, market's status quo is required. Without this information, the argument remains under substantiated and open to debate.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 394 350
No. of Characters: 1904 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.455 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.832 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.556 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.7 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.254 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 60, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t claims that the childrens book section can be replaced for the cafe space becau...
^^
Line 7, column 323, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ssary for their customers. Moreover, it doesnt show that cafe does attract more custom...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 146, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...buting factors. In this particular case, markets status quo is required. Without ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
apparently, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, still, then, for example, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1956.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 393.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.97709923664 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.45244063426 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62845315736 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.480916030534 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 606.6 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.5083685503 57.8364921388 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 97.8 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.65 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.9 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.268919662171 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0822865869746 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0925995079305 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.156661115048 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.094857283389 0.0628817314937 151% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.