The following is from a campaign by Big Boards, Inc., to convince companies in River City that their sales will increase if they use Big Boards billboards for advertising their locally manufactured products.
“The potential of Big Boards to increase sales of your products can be seen from an experiment we conducted last year. We increased public awareness of the name of the current national women’s marathon champion by publishing her picture and her name on billboards in River City for a period of three months. Before this time, although the champion had just won her title and was receiving extensive national publicity, only five percent of the 15,000 randomly surveyed residents of River City could correctly name the champion when shown her picture; after the three-month advertising experiment, 35 percent of respondents from a second survey could supply her name.”
The argument that Big Board billboards can increase the sale of locally manufactured products in River City if they are used for advertising raises some important concerns that must be addressed in order to substantiate the argument. In the statement that follows the argument gives an example of an experiment conducted by Big Boards, Inc. in which it assumes to have increased public awareness by publishing the picture of national women’s marathon champion. Further, the argument gives some statistics to prove its point based on two different surveys it had conducted, this does not constitute a logical argument and it does to provide proof or support to the main argument.
Most inadequately, the argument never addresses the reason for it choosing a women’s marathon champion for its experiment. The company campaign is to increase sales of locally manufactured products in River City by advertising them and not marathon champions. It could have chosen a locally manufactured product to prove its point, this shows Big Boards inefficiency to prove its claims and it is possible that the local manufacturer are not convinced by its billboards and eventually no local manufacturer is ready to advertise.
Second, the argument fails to justify how it increased the public awareness by choosing a women’s marathon champion. It can be quite possible that other broadcasting media had already started projected about this potential champion in various advertisements before Bill Boards. Another possibility is that before becoming a national champion in women’s marathon she was quite popular among the people of River City. The argument gives a rough figure that of 15,000 randomly surveyed residents of River City only five percent could name her correctly. It is possible that the residents recognize the champion by face and not name her correctly.
Finally, the argument never addresses the results of the second survey conducted clearly. It can be assumed that the sample space taken for the second survey was relatively very small compared to the first survey and hence the results improved to 35 percent. Another possibility is that the results of both the surveys where forged for business advantages.
In conclusion, the argument fails to address several key points and so it is neither sound nor persuasive. If it had included the points mentioned above it would have been far more through and convincing.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-03-15 | ambarish55 | 85 | view |
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Sentence: It could have chosen a locally manufactured product to prove its point, this shows Big Boards inefficiency to prove its claims and it is possible that the local manufacturer are not convinced by its billboards and eventually no local manufacturer is ready to advertise.
Description: The fragment the local manufacturer is not usually followed by are
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace are with is
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 387 350
No. of Characters: 2004 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.435 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.178 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.763 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.188 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.214 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.375 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.605 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5