A recent sales study indicates that consumption of seafood dishes in Bay City restaurants has increased by 30 percent during the past five years. Yet there are no currently operating city restaurants whose specialty is seafood. Moreover, the majority of families in Bay City are two-income families, and a nationwide study has shown that such families eat significantly fewer home-cooked meals than they did a decade ago but at the same time express more concern about healthful eating. Therefore, the new Captain Seafood restaurant that specializes in seafood should be quite popular and profitable.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.
This argument discusses the reasons why a new seafood restaurant would be both popular and profitable in Bay City. However, the author makes several assumptions that create gaping holes in the argument, and in order to strengthen this claim, they would need to do more research.
The author cites that the consumption of seafood has increased by 30% in Bay City restaurants, claiming that this is an indicator that a restaurant specializing in seafood would be successful. However, the author fails to consider any outside factors that may have impacted thus surge in seafood. Perhaps Bay City has recently had an influx of new citizens. An increase in population would positively impact the sales of all dishes, whether seafood, vegetarian, or otherwise. Further, the author doesn’t compare this increase with any other dishes. If seafood has increased by 30% but fast food, vegetarian meals, and pizza have all increased by 60%, the 30% increase is no longer as promising. If the author were able to prove that the sale of seafood has risen while the rest of the options declined or remained stagnant, it would strengthen the claim that seafood is becoming more popular.
The study that this author cites also weakens the argument. The study is a nationwide survey, but the author uses it in reference to Bay City. The author assumes that Bay City itself has similar views as the nation as a whole. Though the overall results may indicate a desire for healthy food, a larger city that values healthy lifestyles may have contributed heavily, skewing the results. Bay City itself may filled with people who enjoy fatty and rich foods, but if Bay City is a small town, these survey results would be minimal compared to the large cities and thus may not have impacted the results much. If the author had included a study specific to Bay City that claimed that it’s residents desired better access to healthful food, then the argument would have been stronger.
The author states that an increased desire for healthful eating is a good reason to introduce a seafood restaurant. However, the author fails to explain what “healthful eating” means. Perhaps “healthful eating” refers to eating a plant-based diet – in that case, a seafood restaurant would suffer.
Though a seafood restaurant in Bay City would certainly be unique, the data presented in this argument is not sufficient enough to back up the claim that it would be profitable and popular. The author uses a nationwide study to prove the desires of Bay City, failing to realize that the entire nation may have different beliefs than Bay City itself. Further, the author never specifies what “healthful eating” refers to, merely assuming that fish falls under this category. Lastly, the author touts the fact that seafood sales have increased by 30% in restaurants. This may be promising, but without comparing it to the sales of other dishes, it very well may be meaningless. Overall, the holes in this argument need to be filled before it can be used as verifiable proof
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK, but can be put inside argument 2. Here we need to argue against the conclusion: 'Therefore, the new Captain Seafood restaurant that specializes in seafood should be quite popular and profitable.'.
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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: 24 15
No. of Words: 510 350
No. of Characters: 2451 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.752 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.806 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.453 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 185 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.197 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.542 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.522 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 144, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...uthor uses it in reference to Bay City. The author assumes that Bay City itself has...
^^^
Line 10, column 585, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...creased by 30% in restaurants. This may be promising, but without comparing it to the sales ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 782, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...efore it can be used as verifiable proof
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, lastly, may, so, then, thus, well, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => 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: 2578.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 510.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.05490196078 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75217629947 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70434454739 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.450980392157 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 785.7 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.5006104965 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.416666667 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.25 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.66666666667 5.70786347227 47% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.247402446669 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0872461677703 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0719337552618 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147177039864 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.078457809099 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.46 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.