The following is a recommendation from the business manager of Monarch Books.
"Since its opening in Collegeville twenty years ago, Monarch Books has developed a large customer base due to its reader-friendly atmosphere and wide selection of books on all subjects. Last month, Book and Bean, a combination bookstore and coffee shop, announced its intention to open a Collegeville store. Monarch Books should open its own in-store café in the space currently devoted to children's books. Given recent national census data indicating a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten, sales of children's books are likely to decline. By replacing its children's books section with a café, Monarch Books can increase profits and ward off competition from Book and Bean."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In this recommendation, the author concludes that Monarch Books should open its own in-store café in the space currently devoted to children’s books. To validate this conclusion, the author cites the following fact about: Book and Bean, a combination bookstore and coffee shop, has announced its intention to open a store here in Collegeville; A recent national data indicating a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Close examination of each of evidence, however, reveals that neither of them lends credible support to the recommendation.
Firstly, even if Book and Bean should succeed to attract visitors here in Collegeville, the author does not provide enough information to strengthen Monarch Books has the same result if opening its own in-store café. It is likely that the old customers would find it disappointing and stop visiting Monarch when part of the bookstore turned into a coffee shop, since it definitely does harm to the reader-friendly atmosphere; also, in all likelihood, Monarch Books serves a large number of children readers, thus opening a café in the space devoted to children’s books will result in a loss of this segment of customers. Accordingly, the author must present more specific evidence to sustain that the success of Book and Bean can be duplicated by Monarch Books.
Secondly, the author assumes that the sales of children’s books are going to decrease given a significant decline in the percentage of population under age ten throughout the nation. However, this depends on an additional assumption that the general trend can reflect a specific place, such as Collegeville. Perhaps the living cost in Collegeville is relatively lower compared to that in other regions among the country, thus there are higher rate of fertility in Collegeville, which leads to a higher proportion of children than the national average. Even assuming the result of the survey is representative, further information is needed to validate that the sale will decrease since parents and teachers usually buy children’s books for their children and students. More evidence to compare local and national situations is needed to strengthen validity of opening in-store café in Monarch Books.
Thirdly, the manager believes Monarch is going to increase profits if it opens the in-store café. However, no data or surveys are engaged to bolster this arbitrary prediction. Profitability is restricted by both revenue and expense. Even if all the assumptions in the argument are true, Monarch still faces a latent high expense. It is entirely possible that the cost of the facilities is rather expensive. Plus, the salary of employees might be costly given labor shortage. Even if the cost is within the budget, the revenue cannot be guaranteed since Monarch lacks experience in running a coffee shop and therefore few consumers would patronize this book store. Therefore, regardless of the costs the store has to pay and unknown profit, it cannot establish a competent assumption that an in-store café can assure profits.
To sum up, the manager fails to substantiate his claim that Monarch should open its own in-store coffee shop because the argument relies on certain dubious assumptions. To reinforce it, the author would have to recognize the distinctness between Book & Bean and Monarch; additionally, he would have to demonstrate the sale of children’s books is actually going to decrease. Therefore, if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more thorough and logically acceptable.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 568 350
No. of Characters: 2942 1500
No. of Different Words: 270 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.882 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.18 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.84 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 225 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 185 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.34 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.499 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 473, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
...in all likelihood, Monarch Books serves a large number of children readers, thus opening a café i...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, also, first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, as to, such as, to sum up
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 : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3049.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 568.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36795774648 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88187981987 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04194421285 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 279.0 204.123752495 137% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.491197183099 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 952.2 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 81.2882332168 57.8364921388 141% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.590909091 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8181818182 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.86363636364 5.70786347227 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.246648912203 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.07045612622 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0685088270207 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.152049384746 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.067448730645 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.16 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 154.0 98.500998004 156% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.