The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing.
"Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of our popular alpaca overcoat. Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. Given the outcry from our customers when we discontinued this product and the fact that none of our competitors offers a comparable product, we can expect pent-up consumer demand for our alpaca coats. This demand and the overall increase in clothing prices will make Sartorian's alpaca overcoats more profitable than ever before."
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.
According to Sartorian’s vice president, resuming the production of their alpaca overcoat will result in profits never seen before. The memo presents us with a prompt based on several unstated assumptions, some of which could undermine the logical construction of the reasoning if they prove unverified. In fact, we should consider the changes occurred in the fashion world in terms of taste, prices, demand and offer.
First, five years in the clothing field are a huge amount of time. Customers’ taste changes, as materials and designs do: this represents the first flaw in the vice president’s discourse. He is convinced that the alpaca overcoat will still be desired by customers, representing an up-to-date piece. However, trends could have changed and alpaca could be considered no more fashionable, causing a decrease of demand or at least not the expected pent-up. The vice president should take into account the possibility of renewing the overcoat design in order to buck the pace of fashion evolution. At the same time, old customers’ opinion should be surveyed, trying to understand if they are looking for a timeless design or for a more contemporary one.
Second, he is sure that Sartorian competitors, after five years, still have not produced a similar product. This assumption should be verified, since no prove or reason is offered by the memo to be creditable. Did Sartorian carry out surveys about its competitors? Are there statistics or other kind of data which back this assumption? A careful market analysis should be conducted to state the competitors’ proposals and to evaluate their effectiveness and demand. Moreover, alpaca wool is quite an expensive material and this could represent an obstacle. In a world which appreciates low-cost fashion and cheap clothes can be found almost at every corner, is producing such a sophisticated coat a winning choice? It could be, but Sartorian should also be aware of the competitors’ offer and if they managed to promote on the market a coat with an analogous design, but cheaper due to its material. In addition, fashion nowadays seems to have a strong ethical inclination, and using alpaca wool could cause discontent in some of the customers, who perhaps were not so aware on the matter five years ago.
Third, if a general increase in prices of clothing can be acknowledged, this does not automatically lead to an augment in profits. In fact, the vice president is not guaranteed with the success of the product and customers could be disappointed due to the increased price. If Sartorian relies on aficionados of the alpaca overcoat, they will expect a reasonable increase in price, but not a doubling or more. Therefore, a careful proportioning and setting of the overcoat’s cost should be done, evaluating more precisely the market condition and its ebb and flow.
In conclusion, vice president’s reasoning might seem to flow without flaws, but if more accurately examined, it reveals several drawback caused by the unstated assumptions. Therefore, a punctual revision of the presented policy would be recommended, in order to elaborate a more effective strategy in presenting again an old product on the market and in encountering the customers’ demand.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 60 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 524 350
No. of Characters: 2638 1500
No. of Different Words: 265 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.784 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.034 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.844 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 78 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.833 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.756 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.271 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.467 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.065 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 1033, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...g alpaca wool could cause discontent in some of the customers, who perhaps were not so awar...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 109, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...ed, this does not automatically lead to an augment in profits. In fact, the vice president...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 570, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... market condition and its ebb and flow. In conclusion, vice president's rea...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 126, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun drawback seems to be countable; consider using: 'several drawbacks'.
Suggestion: several drawbacks
...if more accurately examined, it reveals several drawback caused by the unstated assumptions. The...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, look, moreover, second, so, still, therefore, third, at least, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2772.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 524.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29007633588 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7844588288 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.18354932523 2.78398813304 114% => OK
Unique words: 278.0 204.123752495 136% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.530534351145 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 874.8 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.2418342086 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.5 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8333333333 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.75 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0803061041627 0.218282227539 37% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0263085990997 0.0743258471296 35% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0195204986083 0.0701772020484 28% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0489673050578 0.128457276422 38% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0185288085977 0.0628817314937 29% => 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: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.99 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 143.0 98.500998004 145% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.