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.
In a recent email, the Board of Directors of Monarch Books recommended to me that we open a new cafe in our store in order to attract more customers and compete with Regal Books which had opened a cafe recently. However, making this kind of business investment requires ample consideration and I feel that there are many questions that need to be answered before I can move forward with this recommendation.
Firstly, the authors make a potentially flawed assumption that opening a cafe would actually attract more customers. Do bookstores with coffee shops attract more customers? Or, do they, in fact, repel customers who want to avoid the noisy crowds and flavorful coffee aroma while shopping? Regal Books' recent decision to do so was mentioned, but no indication is given whether or not this was a profitable move. An analysis into how much Regal Books' business grew and how many customers it attracted with the new cafe, as well as how relevant this analysis is to our bookshop would be necessary to evaluate the authors' proposal. If, for example, the cafe was a destructive investment, reducing the number of customers of Regal Books, it may not make sense for us to do the same.
Another assumption made by the authors is that building a cafe within the Monarch bookstore is possible. From a legal perspective, the authors would need to verify whether a building permit could be obtained from the city to undertake this project. Logistically, they would also need to answer whether a builder to do the job could be found in the area and whether the proper plumbing and electrical circuitry exists to support the addition of a cafe. Financially, they would need to verify our business is in the proper state to fund this project or take a loan on credit.
Demolishing the children's book section to create space for the cafe on the assumption that it will soon become less popular also needs to be properly questioned. Although the census indicated a decline in the percentage of population below the age of ten, the authors must provide more information. Did the population decline happen in the district of our bookstore? Does it affect our customer base? It could very well be the case that our bookstore is near an elementary school, which has a large number of 10-year-old students, and that has grown in size the last year. In this case, demolishing the children's book section could hurt our business significantly.
Overall, the recommendation from my Board of Directors is, unfortunately, not convincing. I would like to strongly recommend that they do a thorough investigation into the questions raised above and provide an updated report addressing their unstated assumptions with concrete evidence.
--
Tom Sawer
CEO of Monarch Books
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 23 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2241 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.851 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.75 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.087 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.428 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.391 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.596 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.17 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 8 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 369, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...s mentioned, but no indication is given whether or not this was a profitable move. An analysis...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 611, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...shop would be necessary to evaluate the authors proposal. If, for example, the cafe was...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 492, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...is near an elementary school, which has a large number of 10-year-old students, and that has grow...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, so, well, while, for example, i feel, in fact, kind of, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2319.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01948051948 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83292442026 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.521645021645 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 721.8 705.55239521 102% => 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: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.7909239881 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.428571429 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.7619047619 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.212339755848 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0665492026713 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0610129244429 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115513497603 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0513315772454 0.0628817314937 82% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.84 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.52 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.