The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"In order to stop the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Since we are famous for our special bargains, raising our rental prices is not a viable way to improve profits. Last month our store in downtown Marston significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6:00 P.M. rather than 9:00 P.M. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years ago. By implementing similar changes in our other stores, Movies Galore can increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices."
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.
In his memorandum, the owner of Movie Galore avers that in order to run his company more profitable it would be necessary to implement shorter opening hours and a reduced number of films on offer rather than raining film rental prices. He bases his claim on the experiences he made with implementing similar measures in one of his stores last month and that his company was famous for its low prices. However, before the argument can be properly evaluated, the assumptions made by the author should be examined more closely.
First, he assumes that the positive outcome of changes made in one of his stores in downtown Marston can easily be transferred to all of his other stores. However, this assumption is entirely based on the fact that all of his stores are roughly comparable concerning their location or other factors. For instance, while this particular store is located downtown, several other of his stores could be located within residential areas. While it seems sensible to close down his store in Marston already at 6:00 P.M. as most of the daily commuters have then left downtown for their homes, in other stores in different locations it might be possible that most of the customers frequent the store in the hours between 6:00 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. Furthermore, it could, for example, be possible that movies older than five years are not popular in the store in Marston at all, while there might be a high demand for them in others. If either of these scenarios has merit, the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Second, he assumes that an increase in Movie Galore’s movie-rental prices would jeopardize their reputation for offering the best deals available. However, he does not take into account, that for instance, movie prices went up over the past few years while he hasn’t adapted his comparable old prices to the market. Therefore, Movie Galore could still boast their special bargains even with a new calculation of rental prices. Moreover, it could also be possible, that those incredibly cheap prices are a reason for customers to rent their favourite movies somewhere else as they link those special bargains with a bad quality of the respective movies. Thus, if the above is true, the argument does not hold water.
Third, the author claims that the effects of the changes made last month in the store in Marston are of indefinite duration. However, the opposite could be the case. It might be possible that those changes were implemented in a different period of time, for example, the school holidays. Hence the operational circumstances of that particular store would be incomparable to other time of the year. As a result, if this is the case, the argument collapses.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the owner of Movie Galore is able to provide more detailed information about the assumptions he makes in his memorandum and perhaps conducts a systematic research study, then it will be possible to determine whether his mentioned changes would indeed lead to a reduction of operating costs and therefore a more profitable company.
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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: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 538 350
No. of Characters: 2601 1500
No. of Different Words: 260 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.816 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.835 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.612 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.9 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 18.385 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.9 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 239, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...changes were implemented in a different period of time, for example, the school holidays. Henc...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 289, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...time, for example, the school holidays. Hence the operational circumstances of that p...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, moreover, second, so, still, then, therefore, third, thus, while, for example, for instance, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 56.0 28.8173652695 194% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2677.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 534.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01310861423 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80712388197 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68190228012 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494382022472 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 846.9 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 98.8897744967 57.8364921388 171% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.85 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.7 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.25 5.70786347227 145% => 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 : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.226025761514 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0675996474222 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0712828076485 0.0701772020484 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.128762498144 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492568902786 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => 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: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.