The following appeared in an e-mail sent by the marketing director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville.
"Over the past ten years, there has been a 20 percent decline in the size of the average audience at Classical Shakespeare Theatre productions. In spite of increased advertising, we are attracting fewer and fewer people to our shows, causing our profits to decrease significantly. We must take action to attract new audience members. The best way to do so is by instituting a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program this summer. Two years ago the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a 'Free Plays in the Park' program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. Therefore, I recommend that we start a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program of our own. If we do so, I predict that our profits will also see a significant increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The argument presented state that there have been a decline in patronage of Classical Shakespeare Theatre productions despite the increase in advertisement. The author assumes that when the Shakespeare in the park' program is organized in the summer, it will be a sure way to increase their profits and since it worked for Avon Repertory Company, it was going to work for the other company too. The argument when viewed at first glance seem reasonable and cogent but when thought about critically, it is not.
First of all, the actual cause of the decline in patronage was not stated. If Classical Shakespeare production carried out a survey to find out why the audience were not patronizing and then made the decision of organizing the outdoor program, it would have made a lot more sense. It could also be that the cause of the reduction in profit was from too much money that was invested in advertising. It could also be that the advertising was not successful due to how it was made - the time the broadcasted it, the kind of advertising the did and whether it communicated to the prospected audience.
Also, considering to go by the situation like Avon company did two years ago is not logical. It is not stated in the argument that Avon Company had a decline in patronage and that was the reason for organizing their program. Besides that modeling their success to something that occurred two years ago is a long time - a lot may have changed especially when it comes to the interest of audience. The source of the report is not stated, that there was a ten percent increase in the other company's sales. It cannot be trusted just like that.
Additionally, the cost of organizing an outdoor program was not considered as it will mean more money will leave the company. An alternative could be to change their product and service for short while to see the improvement and of course that would be after a cost effective survey. Aside trying to emulate what Avon Repertory company did, did they consider the additional things they did to see an increase in their profit?
The recommendation seems like a good idea but several questions have to be asked. Has the interest of the audience changed, what are we not doing right, what exactly was the reason behind Avon company organizing a program like that, how much will have to be invested in organizing, etc? After answering all these will the argument become cogent.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK, and more, for example: 'its profits have increased 10 percent' not because of a 'Free Plays in the Park' program, something else, or it is not the program alone.
argument 3 -- not exactly. better to say: suppose it works for Avon Repertory Company, doesn't mean it will work for Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 421 350
No. of Characters: 1961 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.53 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.658 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.609 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.765 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.062 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.063 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 395, 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.
...oing to work for the other company too. The argument when viewed at first glance se...
^^^
Line 5, column 288, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “After” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...have to be invested in organizing, etc? After answering all these will the argument b...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, if, may, so, then, while, kind of, of course, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2004.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 421.0 441.139720559 95% => OK
Chars per words: 4.76009501188 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52971130743 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66949659542 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472684085511 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 645.3 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.738880561 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.333333333 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.3888888889 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.72222222222 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0994000888827 0.218282227539 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0355076967798 0.0743258471296 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0620524895126 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0586472456992 0.128457276422 46% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0466569964997 0.0628817314937 74% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.62 12.5979740519 84% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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
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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.