The following is a memo from the marketing director of Lamfonz Pet Stores, which operates thirty pet stores worldwide.
“Five years ago, our competitor Fish Emporium started advertising in Exotic Pets Monthly magazine. Their sales overall have seen a steady increase of 3-to-5 percent per year since then. In fact, the Fish Emporium store in Gulf City saw even more remarkable gains, becoming the most visited pet store in the United States last year. Meanwhile, our two Lamfonz stores in Gulf City have seen sales steadily decline during the same period. It seems clear that we should immediately begin placing our own ads in Exotic Pets Monthly and other popular pet magazines. If we do so, we will be sure to reverse this recent trend of declining sales and start making a profit again.”
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.
The marketing director of Lamfonz Pet Stores concludes, that by placing their own ads in the popular pet magazines they would be able to reverse the recent trend of declining sales and start making profit again. Their decision is based on comparing with another pet store named Fish emporium. Although, the cited evidences seem logical and probable but, the assumptions on which the conclusion relies does not lend credible support to the argument .Hence, the argument seems logically unconvincing in several aspects.
Firstly, the director assumes that since, the sales of the Fish Emporium store increased last year due to their ads in the magazine, the same results would be expected from the Lamponz pet store as well. But ,the director fails to provide evidences for the comparisons in the quality of service provided by both the stores. The Fish Emporium store may have different and unique varieties of pets available and hence their overall sales must be greater. Further, the ambience provided by this store must be better than the Lamfonz store as a result of which the customers would be attracted to the Fish emporium store. Placing their own ads in the Exotic Pets Monthly magazine in no way could then guarantee the increase in profits of the store. Thus, the director should consider about what other factors could attributed to increase of sales in the Lamfonz stores.
In addition to this, the author assumes that since there is increase of 3-5 percent of sales of the Lamfonz stores, so there must be a considerable amount of profit .However, percentage is a relative term. If the overall amount of sales for the Lamfonz stores was just a few dollars then a 3-5 percent increase cannot be considered as an effective increase in the amount of sales.Further, the director provides no evidence for questions like, 'Was the total sales of both the pet stores similar?'. If the overall sales of the Lamfonz stores is much greater than that of the Fish Emporium one then, it would be futile to compare the sales of both the stores.
Finally, the director assumes that placing their ads in the popular magazine could increase their profits. But, since the Fish emporium stores had placed their ads five years ago therefore it must have taken a long time for people to actually reads their articles in the magazine. Further, it may happen that nowadays, people don't read magazines frequently and hence there no point in placing the ads in magazines. Further, the director fails to assume the fact that the Fish Emporium store may have provided extra discounts as result of which their sales have been increasing. The market price of the pets sold from the Lamfonz stores must be excessively high therefore, people do not tend buy pets from the Lamfonz stores.
To sum up, the argument consists of certain obvious fallacies and loopholes .To strengthen the argument the director should have provided addition information about the overall sales of both the stores as well what other factors could be attributed to increase of sales of the Fish Emporium stores. Similarily, small and biased samples could seriously jeopardize the certainty of the conclusion. But, in the absence of this data the conclusion relies on certain doubtful assumption that render it unconvincing as it stands.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 553 350
No. of Characters: 2688 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.849 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.861 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.414 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 196 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.65 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.135 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.365 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 448, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...ot lend credible support to the argument .Hence, the argument seems logically unco...
^^
Line 1, column 450, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Hence
... lend credible support to the argument .Hence, the argument seems logically unconvinc...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 208, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
... from the Lamponz pet store as well. But ,the director fails to provide evidences ...
^^
Line 3, column 812, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'could' requires the base form of the verb: 'attribute'
Suggestion: attribute
...consider about what other factors could attributed to increase of sales in the Lamfonz sto...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 165, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
... must be a considerable amount of profit .However, percentage is a relative term. ...
^^
Line 5, column 167, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: However
...ust be a considerable amount of profit .However, percentage is a relative term. If the ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 381, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Further
...fective increase in the amount of sales.Further, the director provides no evidence for ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 327, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...er, it may happen that nowadays, people dont read magazines frequently and hence the...
^^^^
Line 9, column 76, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
... certain obvious fallacies and loopholes .To strengthen the argument the director ...
^^
Line 9, column 78, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: To
...ertain obvious fallacies and loopholes .To strengthen the argument the director sh...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, thus, well, in addition, as a result, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2754.0 2260.96107784 122% => OK
No of words: 551.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99818511797 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84493438435 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50244000677 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.422867513612 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 852.3 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.9201821475 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.7 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.55 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.65 5.70786347227 117% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.393889572731 0.218282227539 180% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.140927684725 0.0743258471296 190% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.098665153011 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.246160624519 0.128457276422 192% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0934893710741 0.0628817314937 149% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.36 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.