The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The
Mercury, a weekly newspaper.
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago,
The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get
more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at
least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The
Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
A newspaper publisher is recommending that the price of its paper, The Mercury, be reduced below the price of a competing
newspaper, The Bugle. This recommendation responds to a severe decline in circulation of The Mercury during the 5-year period
following the introduction of The Bugle. The publisher’s line of reasoning is that lowering the price of The Mercury will increase its
readership, thereby increasing profits because a wider readership attracts more advertisers. This line of reasoning is problematic in
two critical respects.
While it is clear that increased circulation would make the paper more attractive to potential advertisers, it is not obvious that lowering
the subscription price is the most effective way to gain new readers. The publisher assumes that price is the only factor that caused
the decline in readership. But no evidence is given to support this claim. Moreover, given that The Mercury was the established local
paper, it is unlikely that such a mass exodus of its readers would be explained by subscription price alone.
There are many other factors that might account for a decline in The Mercury’s popularity. For instance, readers might be displeased
with the extent and accuracy of its news reporting, or the balance of local to other news coverage. Moreover, it is possible The Mercury
has recently changed editors, giving the paper a locally unpopular political perspective. Or perhaps readers are unhappy with the
paper’s format, the timeliness of its feature articles, its comics or advice columns, the extent and accuracy of its local event calendar, or
its rate of errors.
conclusion, this argument is weak because it depends on an oversimplified assumption about the causal connection between the price
of the paper and its popularity. To strengthen the argument, the author must identify and explore relevant factors beyond cost before
concluding that lowering subscription prices will increase circulation and, thereby, increase advertising revenues.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 18, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Conclusion
...nt calendar, or its rate of errors. conclusion, this argument is weak because it depen...
^^^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'if', 'moreover', 'so', 'then', 'while', 'for instance']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.282122905028 0.25644967241 110% => OK
Verbs: 0.134078212291 0.15541462614 86% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0837988826816 0.0836205057962 100% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0307262569832 0.0520304965353 59% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0391061452514 0.0272364105082 144% => Less pronouns wanted. Try not to use 'you, I, they, he...' as the subject of a sentence
Prepositions: 0.114525139665 0.125424944231 91% => OK
Participles: 0.0418994413408 0.0416121511921 101% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.07366176172 2.79052419416 110% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0167597765363 0.026700313972 63% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.125698324022 0.113004496875 111% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0195530726257 0.0255425247493 77% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00558659217877 0.0127820249294 44% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2036.0 2731.13054187 75% => OK
No of words: 313.0 446.07635468 70% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.50479233227 6.12365571057 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20616286096 4.57801047555 92% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.431309904153 0.378187486979 114% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.357827476038 0.287650121315 124% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.255591054313 0.208842608468 122% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.182108626198 0.135150697306 135% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07366176172 2.79052419416 110% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 207.018472906 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.533546325879 0.469332199767 114% => OK
Word variations: 55.3836930874 52.1807786196 106% => OK
How many sentences: 14.0 20.039408867 70% => OK
Sentence length: 22.3571428571 23.2022227129 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.3543655471 57.7814097925 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.428571429 141.986410481 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3571428571 23.2022227129 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.5 0.724660767414 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 16.0 5.14285714286 311% => There are something wrong with the essay format.
Language errors: 1.0 3.58251231527 28% => OK
Readability: 58.139890461 51.9672348444 112% => OK
Elegance: 2.15068493151 1.8405768891 117% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.446614750743 0.441005458295 101% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.132103626311 0.135418324435 98% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0774037130018 0.0829849096947 93% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.754985704501 0.58762219726 128% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.201427429987 0.147661913831 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.212538304386 0.193483328276 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.111475833535 0.0970749176394 115% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.154023563017 0.42659136922 36% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.124886757951 0.0774707102158 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.193446208644 0.312017818177 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.130457029308 0.0698173142475 187% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.33743842365 72% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 6.0 6.46551724138 93% => OK
Negative topic words: 5.0 5.36822660099 93% => OK
Neutral topic words: 1.0 2.82389162562 35% => OK
Total topic words: 12.0 14.657635468 82% => 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.