The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memorandum by the owner of the Movies Galore, he/she suggests reducing the operating expenses at the ten movie-rental stores. The decision is taken with the view of coping up with the declining profits. However, the decision by the owner is based on several underlying assumptions and it reveals quite a few instances of poor reasoning and manipulation of facts. Thoughtful review of the arguments expose that they provide little credible support to the claims of the owner. Hence, the argument is incomplete and should not be brought to practice without due consideration.
Rather than figuring out the ultimate causes of declining profits, the owner chooses to reduce the operating costs. Also, the contribution of each of the ten stores in the profits or towards declining profits is unclear. It is probable that only the stores in some areas are prone to reduced customer interactions. Numerous external factors can influence the customers from refraining to rent movies from such stores. One of them could be the coming up of a new movie-rental store in the locality. Since the new store offers better deals, the customers are drawn towards it more than the old stores. Moreover, the rising trend of multiplexes also prevents the local people from renting movies and rather enjoying watching them in theatres. Hence, without accounting for these factors, the owner cannot put the onus of declining profits on the operating expenses.
Still, the owner has implemented this strategy in one of the stores in downtown Marston. He/she argues that reducing the operating hours from 9 pm to 6 pm has not led to any customer complaints. However, there is no mention of the effect of this decision on the problem at the disposal i.e. the declining profits. In addition, the impact of reducing the overall inventory by no longer storing DVDs older than five years is not clearly articulated. Although these new policies didn't lead to customers complaints in this area, one cannot expect similar results in other areas. What if the customer in this area were mainly young people who are not interested in watching old movies? What if the people in this locality are retiring early in the evening? Although these characteristics of the customers in helping the movie-rental store in the downtown Marston, it cannot be taken for granted for all the other areas.
Lastly, the owner concludes that based on his/her arguments, the strategies mentioned by him/her are the best strategies for improving the profits. Without a diligent analysis of all the external and internal influencing reasons for declining profits, the owner is at a fault in calling it the 'best' solution. If there are no other solutions brought to the table, there is nothing that challenges this solution.
In conclusion, the strategies provided by the owner is unpersuasive due to aforementioned reasons. To further substantiate it, a comprehensive analysis must be carried out by considering all the impacting factors. The owner can convince me with his solution for declining profits only after providing a more reliable data and statistics for all the ten stores before and after the implementation of the new policies.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 527 350
No. of Characters: 2614 1500
No. of Different Words: 242 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.791 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.96 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.763 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 157 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 110 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.519 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.725 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.481 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.275 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.46 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 477, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...rticulated. Although these new policies didnt lead to customers complaints in this ar...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, however, if, lastly, moreover, so, still, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2680.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 522.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13409961686 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77988695657 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83424764857 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.475095785441 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 832.5 705.55239521 118% => 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: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.5340123843 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 99.2592592593 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3333333333 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.18518518519 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.269737697313 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0728929353966 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106839861674 0.0701772020484 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.149722823572 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0917993070514 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.81 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.