“Over 75% of households in Parksboro have Jacuzzi bathtubs. In addition, the average family income in Parksboro is 50% higher than the national average, and a local store report a record-high sales of the most costly brands of hair and body care products. With so much being spent on personal care, Parksboro will be a profitable location for a new Luxe Spa—a salon that offers premium services at prices that are above average.”
The author in the passage concludes that Parksboro will be an ideal location to open a new Luxe Spa with high-class service at prices above average, because 75% of the families in Parksboro have Jacuzzi bathtubs and the sales of expensive hair and body care products have grown significantly recently. Furthermore, the average household income of people living in Parkboro is 50% higher than the national average, which makes it more possible for them to afford luxurious spa services. At the first glance, the argument seems somewhat convincing, but further examination reveals that it actually consists of several logical errors.
First of all, owning a bathtub at home or purchasing personal hair and body care products do not necessarily indicate that residents in Parksboro will prefer the premium services provided by Luxe Spa. On the contrary, the popularity of household bathtubs and the record-high sales of personal care products may imply that people in Parksboro spend more time doing personal care at home instead of going out for such services. Thus, the author cannot directly associate these two factors mentioned above with the lucrative future of the newly-opened Luxe Spa at this region.
In addition, the above-national-average family income does not guarantee that the citizens in Parksbora are able to afford such an expensive Spa service. Although the average income is 50% higher than the national average, we are not certain about the exact figures. It’s probable that the expense of the spa service is so costly that it accounts for a large proportion of the family income, which makes the purchase impossible. Therefore, to support the argument with such reason, the author has to be more specific and detailed in presenting the statistic data.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is not persuasive because it rests on questionable logics and does not have strong enough evidence to support it. The author has failed to consider other possible interpretations of supporting details and ignored the importance in providing the actual figures of income and the prices of the spa services to evaluate the affordability.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 343 350
No. of Characters: 1771 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.304 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.163 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.834 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.788 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.378 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.607 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5