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 specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
At first glance although it might seem like the author makes a compelling argument and that the new Captain Seafood Restaurant should be profitable and popular, there is a remarkable lack of evidence suggesting that this argument is a weak one. There are multiple missing evidences indicating that the new restaurant might not be as popular or profitable.
The study about consumption of seafood dishes which the author states as “recent” although plausible cannot be a solid source of evidence. There is no information on how recent this study is. There might have been a change in lifestyle between the current time and the time at which this study was conducted. A 30% increase is also not credible as we do not know the sample size taken while this measurement was done. There is a possibility that residents of Bay City interested in seafood might have a favourite restaurant for their cravings and will be reluctant to try out a new seafood restaurant.
The unavailability of currently operating restaurants specializing in seafood is a crude piece of evidence. Simply because a restaurant is known for its seafood dishes does not mean that people will only go to these restaurants. Everyone has a different taste, and the taste of Bay City residents might lie in other restaurants who although, might not have seafood as their speciality, could certainly still serve good seafood. These restaurants have not been mentioned.
A nationwide study, cited by the author, states that families eat significantly less home cooked meals than they did a decade ago. This study seems vague and does not specify the actual sample size of the families in question. It also fails to clarify what a “significant decrease” in home cooked meals means. This is an important piece of evidence required to make the author’s argument valid. Although there could be a considerable lessening of meals cooked at home this unspecified decrease might not be sufficient to assume that families will flock to restaurants. Home cooked could also mean that these families buy frozen food from grocery stores and just heat it up at home. There is zero evidence to suggest otherwise.
At the same time the author mentions that the families in question also express increased concern about healthful eating. But what this healthful eating implies is not clear. There is no evidence to suggest that just because these families wish to eat healthy, they will indulge in seafood. Seafood although known to be healthy is at times less preferred as compared to vegetables and even other forms of meat. The author does not state the benefits of seafood over other healthy options and why families would be inclined to order seafood as a healthy meal.
Due to a sufficient lack of evidence the author’s argument is a weak one. There is nothing to suggest about the positive and exponential growth of the Captain Seafood restaurant unless new evidence is presented.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 489 350
No. of Characters: 2401 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.702 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.91 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.655 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.56 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.844 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.28 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.468 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 297, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'meals'' or 'meal's'?
Suggestion: meals'; meal's
...a “significant decrease” in home cooked meals means. This is an important piece of ev...
^^^^^
Line 6, column 395, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Although” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ed to make the author’s argument valid. Although there could be a considerable lessening...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, so, still, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2468.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 489.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04703476483 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70248278971 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76368092591 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.466257668712 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 771.3 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.3852972978 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.72 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.56 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.52 5.70786347227 27% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.215761230251 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0655068881011 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0637427214139 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127914833403 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.091207156832 0.0628817314937 145% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.