The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of the Juniper Café, a small, local coffee shop in the downtown area of a small American city:
“We must reduce overhead here at the café. Instead of opening at 6 a.m. weekdays, we will now open at 8 a.m. On weekends, we will only be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. The decrease in hours of operations will help save money because we won’t be paying for utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs during the hours we are closed. This is the best strategy for us to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to assess the reasonableness of both the prediction and the argument upon which it is based. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The owner of Juniper Café is convinced that to reduce cost of operation and prevent bankruptcy, the operating hours of the café should be reduced. The presented argument seems clear and lucid but when thought of critically, you realize there are some considerations to be made to make it more cogent and reasonable.
To begin with, the argument assumes that the only way to reduce cost is reducing hours. Another alternative can be thought of. This will be in terms of management which goes a long way to affect businesses. The menu of the café can be revised to make changes, some things that are not highly patronised can be taken out. A simple suggestion from customers can be taken as to how different things should be made for them. The owner can ask this question about wastage. How much is wasted during a day and how can it be curbed? The owner can even review the height of hygiene it maintains which also contributes to keeping customers to a great extent.
Additionally, the owner can make enquiry of the main cause of the reduction in patronage or the reduction in earnings. He can ask if the workers are working as they are supposed to? Are the customers treated well, are the workers satisfying the customers, are they putting things in place to attract customers? One way of encouraging workers is paying them well and on time; is the owner doing exactly that? Do they meet to discuss the way things are going with the café or does he make singular decisions that discourage the workers from coming on board with ideas and building a team.
Another thing the owner can consider is the time of the year. If it is cold, then that will mean it will be a very bad idea to reduce the hours of operation. But if it is warm like in summer, reducing the hours can be cogent. Even that, an alternative can be considered like switching to sell things suited for the weather.
Moreover, reduction in hours which means decrease in utility cost and wages will also imply customers will come during the hours when it is closed. The café will not only lose their customers to their competitors but their reliability will be at stake.
The argument will be more conclusive if the owner considers revising the menu to suit customers, review the way the café is managed and the customers are satisfied. He should also consider being versatile when it comes to the weather changes and give incentives when the need arises.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
Need to paraphrase the prompts and argue accordingly. Let's analyze the structure of the statement:
condition 1:
Instead of opening at 6 a.m. weekdays, we will now open at 8 a.m. On weekends, we will only be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. //maybe it is a good time for business from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m, or after 4 PM at the weekends. maybe the benefit is still over the cost during those times.
condition 2:
The decrease in hours of operations will help save money because we won’t be paying for utilities, employee wages, or other operating costs during the hours we are closed. //less working hours doesn't mean less expenditure. for example, the owner may still have to pay the rental in 24 hours.
conclusion:
This is the best strategy for us to save money and remain in business without having to eliminate jobs. //it saves some money, but it desn't make money. so maybe there are better strategies.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 430 350
No. of Characters: 1948 1500
No. of Different Words: 194 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.554 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.53 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.438 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 90 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.696 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.328 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.484 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, moreover, so, then, well, another thing, as to, to begin with, to a great extent
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2010.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 4.67441860465 5.12650576532 91% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51528588059 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.460465116279 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 626.4 705.55239521 89% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.8418829546 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.3913043478 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.6956521739 23.324526521 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.13043478261 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.10354022987 0.218282227539 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0341890623701 0.0743258471296 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0384485284352 0.0701772020484 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0652922333218 0.128457276422 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0265436805649 0.0628817314937 42% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.9 14.3799401198 69% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.81 12.5979740519 78% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.65 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.