The following appeared in a memorandum written by the vice president of Health Naturally, a small but expanding chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products.
"Our previous experience has been that our stores are most profitable in areas where residents are highly concerned with leading healthy lives. We should therefore build one of our new stores in Plainsville, which clearly has many such residents. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise equipment are at all-time highs. The local health club, which nearly closed five years ago due to lack of business, has more members than ever, and the weight-training and aerobics classes are always full. We can even anticipate a new generation of customers: Plainsville's schoolchildren are required to participate in a program called Fitness for Life, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The vice president of Health Naturally asserts that a store in Plainsville will be successful because its residents live healthy lives and care about their health. The vice president tells us that running shoe and exercise equipment sales are at an all-time high, local health clubs are at a maximum capacity, and school children participate in health related activities at school. The vice president of Health Naturally relies on assumptions for which have no clear evidence, and on terms for which have no direct definition.
First, the vice president assumes that because people buy running shoes and exercise equipment, that they are leading healthy lives. Is it possible that these consumers of running shoes and exercise equipment are buying such products to give as gifts for someone else, whom is not local to Plainsville? Is it likely that residents buying running shoes are purchasing them for exercise, and not just because they are comfy to wear around the house? These questions mark the assertions, made by the vice president, full of doubt.
The author of the memorandum is under the assumption that five years ago, when local health clubs nearly went out of business, residents of Plainsville were not living healthy lives. The vice president gives no further details of how she knows this to be true. Five years ago, there could have been a recession in the economy, thus residents did not want to pay for a health club membership. Five years ago, a new health fad of “at-home workouts” could have become popular. A lot can change in five years and there can be various reasons that the local health club is booming with business now, and why it was lacking in previous years. Either way, the vice president of Health Naturally fails to give explanation on how residents are currently leading healthy lives. The vice president also fails to define ‘healthy.’ Different people have differing views of how to lead a healthy life, and this can affect the profitability of building a new store in Plainsville. Some people believe that being happy is living a healthy lifestyle; some believe that exercising and dieting makes them healthier. The definition is left up to the reader of this memorandum and further degrades the vice president’s argument.
This argument can be strengthened if the vice president fully defines a healthy lifestyle, and how Health Naturally revolves around that definition. She could also do some research or create a survey to prove that residents in Plainsville did purchase running shoes and exercise equipment because they want to exercise and be healthy. The vice president must also make sure that the school program, Fitness for Life, is having adequate effects on the children’s health. Just because this program promotes exercise, does not mean it promotes healthy eating, which is what Health Naturally would be selling.
In conclusion, the vice president of Health Naturally may not be wrong in asserting that a new store in Plainsville would be profitable, but to support the current conclusion that its residents are interested in living healthy lifestyles, the writer must first define critical terms and submit more conclusive evidence. These modifications to the vice president’s argument will make her point more persuasive, and leave less room for doubts and concerns.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 383, 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.
...in health related activities at school. The vice president of Health Naturally reli...
^^^
Line 3, column 55, Rule ID: BUY_VBG[1]
Message: Did you mean 'by'?
Suggestion: by
...e president assumes that because people buy running shoes and exercise equipment, t...
^^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...at Health Naturally would be selling. In conclusion, the vice president of Hea...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2834.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 544.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20955882353 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82947280553 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84282181894 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455882352941 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 870.3 705.55239521 123% => 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
Interrogative: 2.0 0.471057884232 425% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.588703701 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.818181818 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7272727273 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.54545454545 5.70786347227 45% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.226167415763 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0788298395635 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0521838890262 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139837158749 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0690961313007 0.0628817314937 110% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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: 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.