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 argument is put forth by a group of developers aiming to obtain loan for starting a jazz music club in the city of Monroe. The developers state that jazz is tremendously popular in Monroe and hence a music club dedicated to the genre would be extremely profitable. They also provide a number of reasons and statistics to support their claim. While on a bare glance, the arguments put forth seem valid and cogent, on deeper analysis the argument seems facile and a number of unwarranted points and holes can be digged out.
First of all, to address the popularity of Jazz in Monroe, the developers state that several well known jazz musicians live in Monroe and the highest rated radio program is related to jazz. But these are not valid reasons to conclude that jazz is popular in the city. The musicians might have chosen to stay in Monroe for a number of other reasons such as favorable climate or good real estate options etc. Also, the program 'Jazz Nightly' is the highest rated in the city. This cannot be held as a ground for its popularity.
The developers also point out that a nationwide study indicates that a typical jazz fan spends close to $1000 annually on the genre. This is a classic case of wrong sampling assumption. The statistics provide details for fans spread throughout the country and not just for the city of Monroe where the developers are concentrating on.
It can be a possibility that other regions in the country has fans spending considerably more than $1000 with fans of Monroe spending far less. Also, the study takes example of a typical 'jazz fan'. The study or the developers do not explain as to how many of these fans are within the limits of Monroe.
As one more evidence to support popularity of jazz in the city, developers state that over 100,000 people attended the Monroe's annual jazz festival last summer. But the argument doesn't provide any support for this statement. The developers ought to have provided a base for this statistics instead of just stating this outright. Also, even if the provided statistics was true, it doesn't state anything about the attenders of the festival. Most of the attendees might have come from outside the city to enjoy the festival or Monroe citizens might have made a visit just to enjoy a once in a year event. Finally, the popularity of the festival might have been a rare one due to a celebrity attending the event as a guest. The festival might not have been as popular in the years preceding it. Thus, this cannot be held as a ground that people in Monroe would attend the proposed jazz club on a regular basis.
Thus, with above explanations, it can be concluded that the argument is not well thought out and jumps to ill formed conclusions. The statistics provided are not acceptably relevant to the argument. The argument could have strengthened by providing a survey within the citizens of Monroe whose results would have explicitly shown their love for jazz and their willingness to spend money on it.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 526 350
No. of Characters: 2425 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.789 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.61 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.49 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.04 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.077 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.56 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.494 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 350, Rule ID: ON_FIRST_GLANCE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'at'?
Suggestion: at
...statistics to support their claim While on a bare glance the arguments put forth s...
^^
Line 3, column 516, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t be held as a ground for its popularity The developers also point out that a nat...
^^^^^
Line 8, column 176, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...z festival last summer But the argument doesnt provide any support for this statement ...
^^^^^^
Line 8, column 271, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...opers ought to have provided a base for this statistics instead of just stating this...
^^^^
Line 8, column 374, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... if the provided statistics was true it doesnt state anything about the attenders of t...
^^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...roposed jazz club on a regular basis Thus with above explanations it can be concl...
^^^^
Line 10, column 183, Rule ID: PHRASE_REPETITION[1]
Message: This phrase is duplicated. You should probably leave only 'the argument'.
Suggestion: the argument
...provided are not acceptably relevant to the argument The argument could have strengthened by providing a ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, if, so, then, thus, well, while, as to, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2440.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 524.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.65648854962 5.12650576532 91% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7844588288 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.48321971729 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.416030534351 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 782.1 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 1.0 19.7664670659 5% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 524.0 22.8473053892 2293% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 0.0 57.8364921388 0% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 2440.0 119.503703932 2042% => Less chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 524.0 23.324526521 2247% => Less words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 95.0 5.70786347227 1664% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.301898612787 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.301898612787 0.0743258471296 406% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0 0.0701772020484 0% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166508663176 0.128457276422 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0685351381735 0.0628817314937 109% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 262.5 14.3799401198 1825% => Automated_readability_index is high.
flesch_reading_ease: -451.92 48.3550499002 -935% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 0.0 7.1628742515 0% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 206.5 12.197005988 1693% => Flesch kincaid grade is high.
coleman_liau_index: 11.23 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 32.25 8.32208582834 388% => Dale chall readability score is high.
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 60.0 12.3882235529 484% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 211.6 11.1389221557 1900% => Gunning_fog is high.
text_standard: 60.0 11.9071856287 504% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.