The MegaTek Corporation’s vice president of marketing made the following
statement to the company’s board of directors:
MegaTek has been losing market share to UltraCorp for three years straight.
Customer surveys suggest that consumers perceive UltraCorp products to be of
higher quality than those produced by MegaTek. MegaTek spends more annually on
research and development than UltraCorp does, and it pays its employees a higher
average salary, so we do not believe that our products are actually inferior; rather,
the perception is due to the fact that UltraCorp charges higher prices and spends
more money on advertising. In order to regain the lost market share from UltraCorp,
MegaTek should raise its prices and devote more money to advertising.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your 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 examples or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion.
You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument,
what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what,
if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The argument claims that in order to compensate its losses, MegaTek should increase product prices and spend more money on advertising. Stated in this way the argument manipulates facts and conveys distorting view of the situation. Conclusion of the argument is based on assumptions which has no clear evidence for evaluating the issue. Hence, the argument is weak and has some flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes, if the MegaTec spends more on research and development than UltraCorp does, it means that MegaTek products will not lose its market share. There is no clear evidence that spending more on reasearch and development gives to company an advantage among other companies. For example, The Ultracorp can spend less on the research and development, but still know about the consumer's tastes and preferences.
Second, the argument claims that the reason why the UltraCorp has more market share is due to the high product prices, and if the Megatec will increase its prices it will rise the market share. This argument has no strenght base. Customers mostly prefer the products with high quality, not the high prices. However, the high prices is not the indicator of the high quality. So, the reason that customers prefer the UltraCorp products to MegaTec products, may be the quality of the product. So, MegaTec ought to control its products for quality.
Finally, as a third argument it is shown that MegaTec can increase its market share by devoting more money to advertising, as a UltraCorp does. Of course, the advertisement does attract more customers, but it is not the main issue. Consumers always praise the products that they are fond of. So, if products have high quality and are mostly prefered by buyers then the company will rise its market share, even the products of the company are not highly advertised.
In conclusion, the arguments do not sound logically and are weaken by above mentioned assumptions. MegaTec company should review its key factors, if it really wants to regain the lost market share from UltraCorp.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 61, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'weakened'.
Suggestion: weakened
...rguments do not sound logically and are weaken by above mentioned assumptions. MegaTec...
^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'finally', 'first', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'really', 'second', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'third', 'for example', 'in conclusion', 'of course']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.290237467018 0.25644967241 113% => OK
Verbs: 0.147757255937 0.15541462614 95% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0606860158311 0.0836205057962 73% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0554089709763 0.0520304965353 106% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0343007915567 0.0272364105082 126% => Less pronouns wanted. Try not to use 'you, I, they, he...' as the subject of a sentence
Prepositions: 0.105540897098 0.125424944231 84% => OK
Participles: 0.023746701847 0.0416121511921 57% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.58868808022 2.79052419416 93% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0184696569921 0.026700313972 69% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.11345646438 0.113004496875 100% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0263852242744 0.0255425247493 103% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00527704485488 0.0127820249294 41% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2050.0 2731.13054187 75% => OK
No of words: 338.0 446.07635468 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.0650887574 6.12365571057 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.28774723029 4.57801047555 94% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.396449704142 0.378187486979 105% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.284023668639 0.287650121315 99% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.210059171598 0.208842608468 101% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.10650887574 0.135150697306 79% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58868808022 2.79052419416 93% => OK
Unique words: 161.0 207.018472906 78% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.476331360947 0.469332199767 101% => OK
Word variations: 48.5733811193 52.1807786196 93% => OK
How many sentences: 19.0 20.039408867 95% => OK
Sentence length: 17.7894736842 23.2022227129 77% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9330263392 57.7814097925 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.894736842 141.986410481 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.7894736842 23.2022227129 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.842105263158 0.724660767414 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 3.58251231527 28% => OK
Readability: 46.1918405481 51.9672348444 89% => OK
Elegance: 1.76666666667 1.8405768891 96% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.369230949147 0.441005458295 84% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.163718145863 0.135418324435 121% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.127803456638 0.0829849096947 154% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.568772785408 0.58762219726 97% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.163495715941 0.147661913831 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.157801074825 0.193483328276 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.074455784546 0.0970749176394 77% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.414637246855 0.42659136922 97% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0884527835452 0.0774707102158 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.25168448958 0.312017818177 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0485154977732 0.0698173142475 69% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.33743842365 84% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.87684729064 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.82512315271 104% => OK
Positive topic words: 6.0 6.46551724138 93% => OK
Negative topic words: 7.0 5.36822660099 130% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.82389162562 106% => OK
Total topic words: 16.0 14.657635468 109% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.