The following appeared in a memo from the marketing director of Top Dog Pet Stores.
"Five years ago Fish Emporium started advertising in the magazine Exotic Pets Monthly. Their stores saw sales increase by 15 percent after their ads began appearing in the magazine. The three Fish Emporium stores in Gulf City saw an even greater increase than that. Because Top Dog Pet Stores is based in Gulf City, it seems clear that we should start placing our own ads in Exotic Pets Monthly. If we do so, we will be sure to reverse the recent trend of declining sales and start making a profit again."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The managing director of Top Dog Pet Stores concludes that they should start advertising in Exotic Pets Monthly magazine to increase the sales of their stores and turn their business profitable. The author comes to this contention based on the fact that Fish Emporium observed increased in sales after they started to advertise in the magazine. Before we assess the validity of this argument, the author needs to provide additional evidence against the three unwarranted assumptions stated below.
The author assumes that the 15 percent increase in sales denotes a significant number. May be the sales of the Fish Emporium stores was fairly low, such that even 15 percent increase in the sales cannot be consider to be a significant number. It is also possible that the 15 percent increase in sales of Fish Emporium stores is significant for them, but, the same is not even considerable increase in sales of Top Dog Stores to turn them profitable, to even to break even. If either of the above scenarios hold true then the author's contentions fails to hold water.
The author assumes that the increase in sales of Fish Emporium is a result of advertisement. However, there could be multiple reasons for the increase in sales. Like, may be the other major fish stores shutdown and their customer turned to Fish Emporium. It is also possible that the Fish Emporium stores introduced many new varieties of fish in their stores which attracted more customers than ever. Either of the above case, is likely to hinder the credibility of the author's assumption.
The author assumes that their stores will also see similar increase in sales like the fish stores due to the fact that both stores are located in Gulf City. However, it is possible that the people of Gulf loves to have or gift fishes to other as a symbol of good luck. It is also possible that many inhabitants of Gulf city prefers a pet which does not need constant attention and thus are likely to have a fish than a dog as a pet. In either scenario, the author's assumption is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the managing director might be right that advertising in the magazine would increase the sales of the stores. However, as it stands now the conclusion stands on three assumptions that hinders its validity. The author needs to provide evidences to above mentioned assumptions to increase the persuasiveness of their argument
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 407 350
No. of Characters: 1961 1500
No. of Different Words: 173 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.492 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.818 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.605 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.261 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.373 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 471, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...l evidence against the three unwarranted assumptions stated below. The author ...
^^
Line 3, column 92, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...sales denotes a significant number. May be the sales of the Fish Emporium stores w...
^^
Line 3, column 474, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” 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.
...them profitable, to even to break even. If either of the above scenarios hold true...
^^
Line 5, column 472, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...likely to hinder the credibility of the authors assumption. The author assumes that ...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 458, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...a dog as a pet. In either scenario, the authors assumption is significantly weakened. ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2004.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 407.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92383292383 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49157444576 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65528654532 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.432432432432 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 636.3 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.5130255418 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.473684211 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4210526316 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.05263157895 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.353537026001 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.11433683724 0.0743258471296 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.111813921051 0.0701772020484 159% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.213138831886 0.128457276422 166% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.079192018899 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.