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 author of the application concludes that establishing a jazz club in Monroe is highly profitable. He comes to this conclusion based on unavailability of jazz club in local area, favor of people to last summer jazz festival and radio program as well as a nation wide survey showing the average money spent by a jazz fan. The writer's assertion might be true, but following three explanations must be substantiated in order to determine the credibility of the argument.
First of all, the author assumes that the jazz club to be established in Monroe will be better than that located at nearest at present and people favor going to the new club than the farther one. It is possible that the nearest jazz club has best sound equipments that cannot be comparable to others and people continue to go to same club despite being away. Also, the club has been sponsored by various drink manufactures so the cost of drink is cheap as well as they provide more complementary drinks so people are more attracted by that club. So, the customers of that club cannot be attracted by new clubs and cannot compete with it. If any of these cases are true, then the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the writer assumes that people are equally enthusiastic over daily jazz programs as they are to annual jazz festival and weekly radio program. It might be possible that the last summer jazz festival was a huge success because it was once in a blue moon and people celebrated it so highly which may not be the case if jazz programs are conducted every night in the local club. The success of the festival might also account for reputed and virtuoso musicicans performing the programs who are far better than the daily performers to be employed in the jazz club. Moreover, people in Monroe prefer listening jazz music in homes rather then going in a club just for music so it might not be as famous among people as the weekly radio program 'Jazz Nightly'. If any of these scenarios have merit, then the conclusion of the argument is signficantly hindered.
Finally, the author assumes that the nation wide survey is an indicative of Monroe too. Perhaps the large average amount of money spent by jazz fan be due to high spending by affulent peple of other debonair and wealthy cities of the nation. People of Monroe normally belong to middle-class family and are not able to spend such a huge amount leading to less sales and profit in the local jazz club to be established. If this is the true case, then the persuasiveness of the argument is weakened.
Thus, in conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to provide evidence to these three explanations (perhaps based on scientific study approach), then the viability of the argument can be fully evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 496 350
No. of Characters: 2306 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.719 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.649 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.582 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.105 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.386 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.393 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 259, Rule ID: NATION_WIDE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'nationwide'?
Suggestion: nationwide
...festival and radio program as well as a nation wide survey showing the average money spent ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 329, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
... average money spent by a jazz fan. The writers assertion might be true, but following ...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 643, Rule ID: RATHER_THEN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'than'? 'than' is used for comparisons, 'then' is an expression of time.
Suggestion: than
...er listening jazz music in homes rather then going in a club just for music so it mi...
^^^^
Line 4, column 38, Rule ID: NATION_WIDE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'nationwide'?
Suggestion: nationwide
.... Finally, the author assumes that the nation wide survey is an indicative of Monroe too. ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 354, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun sales is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... to spend such a huge amount leading to less sales and profit in the local jazz club...
^^^^
Line 6, column 298, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...of the argument can be fully evaluated.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, in conclusion, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2352.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 496.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 4.74193548387 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71922212354 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62374542638 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453629032258 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 743.4 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.0305189221 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.789473684 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1052631579 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.57894736842 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.315430500282 0.218282227539 145% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104448462334 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0766724594202 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.176275505092 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.075183904092 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.51 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.