The following was written as a part of an application for a small-business loan by a group of developers in the city of Monroe.
"A jazz music club in Monroe would be a tremendously profitable enterprise. Currently, the nearest jazz club is 65 miles away; thus, the proposed new jazz club in Monroe, the C-Note, would have the local market all to itself. Plus, jazz is extremely popular in Monroe: over 100,000 people attended Monroe's annual jazz festival last summer; several well-known jazz musicians live in Monroe; and the highest-rated radio program in Monroe is 'Jazz Nightly,' which airs every weeknight at 7 P.M. Finally, a nationwide study indicates that the typical jazz fan spends close to $1,000 per year on jazz entertainment."
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.
The developers argue that opening a jazz club in Monroe would be profitable. This argument is based on the premises that its competitor is far away from the city, thus it would cater all local market, jazz is popular in Monroe since more than 100,000 people attended jazz festival last year, jazz musicians live in this city and moreover, the national study indicated that a jazz fan typically spends USD 1000 annually on jazz entertainment. This argument seems true at first sight, however, on deeper analysis, it becomes clear that certain relevant aspects have not been taken into account, leading to a number of unverified evidences and logical flaws.
One such flaw is the unverified evidence on sampling. In other words, the developers have assumed that large gathering of people in the summer last year to a jazz festival would re-occur this year. However, there may be the case that this event was one of its kind and happened only once in five years, thus large number of people gathered to such rare occurrence. And moreover, it may also be the case since it was a festival, it occurred only once in a year. For example, in India, on the occasion of Diwali, a local regional popular festival, more than 500,000 people gathered to celebrate the arrival of Goddess Durga to a specific place, but it does not transform into any ardent following of an interest and entertainment. Thus, in order to strengthen the argument, the developers would need to provide the evidence on the continuity of such events and their impact on jazz.
Moreover, the developers’ argument is incorrectly based on the unverified evidence on cause and effect. In other words the developers have assumed that since jazz musicians live in Monroe and the nearest competitor is at 65 miles away from Monroe, people in Monroe have a penchant for jazz and new club would be profitable respectively. However, there may be the case that costs of living in Monroe is affordable in comparison to other locations and emoluments of these musicians are at sub-optimal level, thus they are forced to live in Monroe. There may also be the case that competitor has already planned to open its another club in the Monroe and all planning such as identification of location, hiring of jazz musician etc. has been done and its club is going to open shortly in the next 2 months. Thus, it would capture all available local market before the developers’ club come into existence. Thus, to overcome this flaw, the developers should provide evidence on what made the musicians to live in Monroe and what are the plans of the competitor.
Finally, the developers also arbitrarily assumed the existence of unverified evidence of nationwide study. In other words, the developers have assumed that this study conducted lately and covered all the population of Monroe, thus indicated desired results. However, there may be the case that this study was conducted was 10 years ago and following that, market conditions in Monroe have changed significantly that now an average jazz follower spends only USD 150 annually. Moreover, there may be the case that this study covered only small size of population, especially college students, which coincidentally followed jazz, thus indicated higher average spending on jazz. It may be the case that the proportion of college students in national population is just 20 per cent and moreover, this population is scattered in the whole nation that there is not a significant number of college students present in a single location. Thus, to render this argument more valid, the developers would need to analyse the study comprehensively.
While concluding, after close examination of the argument presented, it is apparent that the argument as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on certain unverified evidences. The recommendations in the above paragraphs show how the argument may be strengthened and made more logically sound.
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: 655 350
No. of Characters: 3220 1500
No. of Different Words: 262 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.059 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.916 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 174 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 130 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.478 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.941 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.913 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.523 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 623, Rule ID: IT_IS[6]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: it's; it is
... competitor has already planned to open its another club in the Monroe and all plan...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, incidentally, may, moreover, so, then, thus, while, for example, such as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3324.0 2260.96107784 147% => OK
No of words: 655.0 441.139720559 148% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07480916031 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.05894927669 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81469998095 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 276.0 204.123752495 135% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.421374045802 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1071.9 705.55239521 152% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.5021367202 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.5 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2916666667 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.33333333333 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.252926384909 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.081766727297 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0834085013854 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142597241159 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0780557297627 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 138.0 98.500998004 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.