The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client.
"Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienced 90 days with below-average temperatures, and climate forecasters at Waymarsh University predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes have been built in this region during the past year. Because these developments will certainly result in an increased demand for heating oil, we recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
According to the letter from the investment firm, the client was advised to invest in Consolidated industries, one of whose major business operations was in the retail sale of home heating oil. They had arrived at this conclusion based on the fact that increase in number of cold days was likely to translate into an increase in the demand for heating oil in the northeastern United states. However before this recommendation is accepted, the following three questions must be answered.
First of all, the home owners who have been traditionally using oil as their major fuel for heating might change over to renewable sources of energy. With the increasing awareness about climate change, many citizens are looking for opportunities to transfer from traditional fuel sources like oil and gas to renewable sources like solar energy and geothermal energy for heating their homes. Thus, it is imperative that client takes into consideration this phenomenon before making any investment decision.
Secondly, as the oil business is a saturated market already, there is a lot of competition which will result in dragging down the prices. This effect will have a direct impact on the profits for Consolidation industries. So, the question that the client should be asking is ‘what is it that Consolidation industries is going to do differently to stand out in the competitive market scenario?’. Moreover with the sporadic nature of the oil market, the brent crude prices keep on fluctuating throughout the year, and shoot up very often due to global dynamics.
Furthermore, it is assumed that all the new home owners who have recently build their houses will use the oil from Consolidated industries only. It is possible that they are already loyal to some other brand that they have been using since before moving to the new houses. Also, it is assumed the all the current residents will start or continue using heating oil from Consolidated industries in the coming years (where it is predicted that cold conditions will continue.)
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the firm is able to answer the three aforementioned questions or is able to provide evidence supporting their recommendation (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to full evaluate the viability of the proposed investment advice.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 395 350
No. of Characters: 1990 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.458 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.038 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.854 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.514 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.318 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 392, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
... oil in the northeastern United states. However before this recommendation is accepted,...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 394, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Moreover,
...t in the competitive market scenario?’. Moreover with the sporadic nature of the oil mar...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 75, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'builded', 'built'.
Suggestion: builded; built
...l the new home owners who have recently build their houses will use the oil from Cons...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, thus, as to, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2036.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 395.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.15443037975 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.45809453852 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92864015949 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.549367088608 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 640.8 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.4894268359 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.733333333 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.3333333333 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.2 5.70786347227 144% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.31911346785 0.218282227539 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0923641630839 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0735071082588 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154988657808 0.128457276422 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0766423374546 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.0 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.