The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits."
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.
In his memorandum, the owner of Movies Galore recommends cutting down on the operational expenses at their video rental stores in order to bolster their dwindling revenues. In order to do so, the owner suggests advancing the closing times of the stores by three hours and eliminating all the movies that are older released more than five years ago. To support his argument, the owner cites a similar step that was taken in one of their stores and recommends extending this plan to all the other stores as well. While the owner's suggestion seems reasonable, there are a few key questions that need to be answered in order to make a complete assessment of the plan's viability and effectiveness.
How did making these changes at the store in Downtown Marston affect its profits? The owner only talks about the reduced operational costs, but does not mention the effects on the profits, increasing which was the main goal in the first place. It might have been possible that a majority of customers prefer to go shopping in the soothing evening weather, depending upon the location of course. Also, by not selling the movies that released before five years, the store could be loosing out many of its customers. A lot of people might be fans of the classics who will no longer buy movies from the store. In these cases, even though the plan decreased the operational costs, it might have had a severe effect on the revenues as well, thus failing to increase the profits.
Is raising prices of the movie rentals really not feasible? The owner states that it is their image of offering special bargains which brings in a lot of their customers and assumes that by increasing the prices they will loose a lot of their customers. However, this assumption does not have any evidence. It might be that in an attempt to lure more customers, they might have lowered their prices to an extent that it has caused heavy losses in their sales. If the prices are excessively low, increasing them a little might still have their products reasonably prices and lower than their rivals. In such a case, they will not alienate any of their customers and will be potentially able to make more profits.
Finally, are there any other ways to increase profits? The owner seems to think that the only way going forward is to reduce their operational costs, however there maybe other methods which might even be more conducive in increasing the sales. It might seem counter-intuitive, but an effective way of attracting more customers and increasing their funds might be to make more investments. Yes, in the short term, it will mean that their profits suffer even heavier blows than before. But if these investments result in an increased number of sales, the plan might have an overall positive effect on their profits. For example, maybe they can invest in advertisement which can make more people aware of their stores and the special bargains that they offer. They can also work on the aesthetics and ease of use of their stores in order to make the customers' experience even more satisfactory. These changes can really help them set the store on the right path and might have long-term positive effects.
Therefore, we can say that in its current form, the owner's argument can not be taken at its face value as it has a few unstated assumptions that if proven unwarranted, might make the plan counter-productive. However, collecting more evidence and thinking on the lines of the above questions, might help the store come up with effective plans for improving their profits. Answering the above questions on the basis of proper evidence will help in the proper evaluation of the plan and also anticipate the results of implementing it.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 638 350
No. of Characters: 3022 1500
No. of Different Words: 282 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.026 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.737 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.514 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.63 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.344 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.741 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.482 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 522, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'owners'' or 'owner's'?
Suggestion: owners'; owner's
...all the other stores as well. While the owners suggestion seems reasonable, there are ...
^^^^^^
Line 1, column 659, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'plans'' or 'plan's'?
Suggestion: plans'; plan's
...er to make a complete assessment of the plans viability and effectiveness. How d...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 9, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'did' requires the base form of the verb: 'make'
Suggestion: make
...ability and effectiveness. How did making these changes at the store in Downtown ...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 223, Rule ID: LOOSE_LOSE[4]
Message: Did you mean 'lose' (= miss, waste, suffer the loss etc.)?
Suggestion: lose
...that by increasing the prices they will loose a lot of their customers. However, this...
^^^^^
Line 17, column 53, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'owners'' or 'owner's'?
Suggestion: owners'; owner's
...e can say that in its current form, the owners argument can not be taken at its face v...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, really, so, still, therefore, thus, well, while, for example, of course, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 27.0 12.9520958084 208% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 62.0 28.8173652695 215% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3098.0 2260.96107784 137% => OK
No of words: 638.0 441.139720559 145% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85579937304 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.02579962599 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60000876865 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 286.0 204.123752495 140% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.448275862069 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 962.1 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.1605137104 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.740740741 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.6296296296 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.03703703704 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.121347839929 0.218282227539 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.04593496551 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0753627575195 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0818209505016 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0509978933606 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.