Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly, Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville's schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age.
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 the above article, the author states that opening a new outlet of Nature’s Way in Painesville will turn out the most beneficial store. The people of Painesville are keen about their health, thus they can turn out to be an affluent customer base. At first instance, the author's argument seems to be convincing, but it may fall apart due to some premature assumptions made. Nature’s Way’s attempt to run a successful business in Painesville may fail if the detailed analysis of the three questions is not carried out.
First of all, what is the definition of “Healthy Lives”? There is no insight provided into the demography of Painesville. In order to define Healthy Lives as led by the residents, the author should have given us the census of the population over a period of time and average mortality rate. Also, a comparison is to be made between the average life span of the people living in the other geographical region and the people of Painesville. Moreover, if the people are essentially obligated towards healthy lives, there is a possibility of a well-established market of ‘health food’ in Painesville, which will naturally cause competition and impact direct sales of Nature’s Way, leading to dwindling profits. If either of the scenarios has merit, then conclusion drawn in the original argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are on its peak, this sudden change in the sales might be due to the lucrative seasonal discounts provided by the vendors in order to clear the old stock. Also, as the Sports shoes are the most comfortable in hilly areas(such as Painesville), for people to commute, people in Painesville possibly tend towards purchasing them. The fallacious reasoning based on the skyrocketing sales data might mislead the franchise owner giving them the wrong insights. If this is the case the conclusion drawn by the author in the article is significantly weakened.
Finally, even if the school children are participating in the fitness-for life program, the author prematurely assumes that these children will take a healthy diet. Instead, the school kids are generally advised to have a regular diet in addition to the exercise. The health food, which has high proteins, crabs, etc, sold by Nature’s Way is mostly consumed by the bodybuilder and the trainers. Thus if Nature’s Way is taking the decision, considering school children as a cause of their sales(as stated in the article) and if the above is true, then the argument losses its credit.
In conclusion, the article, as it stands now is considerably flawed, due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the above questions and offer more evidence(perhaps in form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the proposed recommendation of setting up a new franchise of Nature’s Way in Painesville.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 482 350
No. of Characters: 2368 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.686 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.913 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.848 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.1 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.734 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 273, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...t customer base. At first instance, the authors argument seems to be convincing, but it...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 249, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
... us the census of the population over a period of time and average mortality rate. Also, a com...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 513, 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.
...e owner giving them the wrong insights. If this is the case the conclusion drawn b...
^^
Line 7, column 396, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ed by the bodybuilder and the trainers. Thus if Nature’s Way is taking the decision,...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, in addition, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2459.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 482.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10165975104 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68556276237 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97316513516 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.52489626556 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 769.5 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.4884162001 57.8364921388 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.95 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.75 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => 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: 0.233803779504 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0596354136461 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0610484026685 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121049523326 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0395925055177 0.0628817314937 63% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.63 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.