"The following was used as part of an internet advertising company's appeal to businesses: Furniture Depot employed our internet advertising company to help. Since then its sales increased by 10% over last year's totals. Furniture Depot's success demonstrates how using our internet services can increase your profitability. "
Describe how well reasoned you find this argument. In the 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 argument's conclusion. You may also address possible changes in the argument that would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
An internet ad company would like potential customers to believe that they can increase business profitability, so they cite an example in which a business, Furniture Depot, employed them to help with advertising, and subsequently saw profits increase by 10%. Statistics can be spun to say just about anything, and this ad company is trying its best to use statistics to its advantage here. Although the timing is convenient, there could have been any number of factors which influenced the increase in profitability of Furniture Depot. Furthermore, an uptick of 10% is promising, but not necessarily indicative of a lasting increase in profits.
First, the internet ad company hopes that potential customers will interpret the same cause and effect relationship they do-- that using their services causes an increase in profitability. However, there are numerous reasons for increased profits. Perhaps the economy was booming this quarter, and folks had extra cashflow to upgrade their home furnishings. Or maybe this is the season which includes Memorial Day, 4th of July, and/or Labor Day sales, enticing customers into the store for sales, but ensnaring them into additional purchases to complement the sale items. There are a multitude of other factors which could impact Furniture Depot's profit margin.
Second, the internet ad company hopes that potential customers will interpret the 10% uptick in profits as reason enough to employ their services. Is the cost worth the benefit? A 10% short-term uptick is promising, but again, there are many reasons besides increased online advertising for such a boon. Sale cycles, economic fluctuations-- many factors contribute to profitability. The cost to Furniture Depot is unknown, so it cannot be determined whether sales totals truly increased net profits after Furniture Depot paid for the advertising. The ad company's careful wording leaves the reader in the dark-- "sales totals", "profitability"-- they never literally state the net profits increased. Even the phrase "can increase" is fishy-- no guarantee is offered, just the possibility of success.
The internet ad company's argument could be strengthened by providing evidence that the specific products advertised increased in sales. Also, a comparison could be made to other stores' sales at the same time, with and without the ad company's services, for a comparison less colored by economic fluctuations. They did compare Furniture Depot's sales at the same time of year, removing the impact of sales cycles, so at least there is a smidgeon of consistency in their argument. In short, all advertisements should be taken with a grain of salt, and it is necessary to consider the outside economic factors, and investigate the true impact to net profit before drawing a conclusion about the effectiveness of the internet ad company's services.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 571, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...e Depot. Furthermore, an uptick of 10% is promising, but not necessarily indicative of a la...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 205, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...h the benefit? A 10% short-term uptick is promising, but again, there are many reasons besi...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, so, then, at least, in short
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2443.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 448.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.453125 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60065326758 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.13661028806 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.529017857143 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 775.8 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 10.0 1.67365269461 597% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.6757829091 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.15 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.7 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.339112763138 0.218282227539 155% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0947211468058 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0662663097228 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.205082426404 0.128457276422 160% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0878929476413 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.63 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.2 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
---------------------
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.