Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five

Question

Please go through it once and do let me know how can I improve it? Also how good will I score on this?

The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:

“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

The argument in the memorandum claims that the best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bulge, at least until the circulation increases to former levels. Stated in this way the argument is inconclusive without data supporting its hypothesis, tends to manipulate facts to present a distorted view of the reality, and also is a leap of faith reasoning without clear outcomes. In sum, the argument could be improved if it is supported with relevant data on which its core assumptions depend upon.

First the argument readily assumes that reducing the price of The Mercury will help it gain more readers and help it reach to its former levels. This statement can be incorrect because there could be several other reasons for the readers switching from The Mercury to The Bulge like the type of content, use of language, way of presenting the news etc. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that how the circulation of The Bulge has affected the newspapers year per year and based on the geography and interest of its readers.

Second, the argument claims that the increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more business to buy advertising space in the paper, but it does not specify how will this help the financials of the company. How much more funding will it bring to the table and at what cost. Also if more space is provided for the advertisement will it not affect the readers again moving to other source of news? Without convincing answers to all these questions, one is left with impression that the claim is more of a wishful thing rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore not convincing. It would be considerably stronger if the author clearly mentioned what were the reasons for The Mercury readership to go down in these five years. In order to assess the merits of a decision, it is necessary to have full knowledge of the contributing factors. Without this info, the argument remains indefensible and open to debate.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 4.5 out of 6!

I have used a GMATAWA auto-grader to evaluate your essay.

Coherence and connectivity: 2.5/5
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 4.5/5
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 4.5/5
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

vichitravir · Answer

Thanks a lot for your help.

regards
vd

Samrudhi · Answer

HI Sajjad1994 ,

Can you please evaluate below AWA essay and provide feedback?

Prompt : “Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”

My Essay:
The argument claims that the Mecury should reduce it’s price to increase it’s circulation and earn more revenues in form of advertisement. To support this author states that since lower priced new-paper started five years ago the circulation of the Mecury has declined. Stated this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which argument could be evaluated. The argument is based on weak assumptions for which there is no clear evidence.
First, the argument readily assumes that comparatively high price of The Mercury newspaper is the only reason for decrease in the readers. This statement is stretched because there could be various reasons such as quality of reporting, range and variety of news reported, etc due to which circulation would have decreased. For example, people might prefer reporting of local news or regional political issues which might not be extensively covered in The Mercury. Clearly in that case lowering the price of the newspaper would have help to increase the circulation. The argument could be much clear if, for example, it stated readers have exclusively cited price as main reason for not buying The Mercury.
Second the argument claim that increased circulation will result into increased sell of advertising space. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any direct correlation between increase in circulation and increase in advertisement revenues. Though common sense dictates newspaper with wider circulation will be desirable for advertisers but there could be other factors such as readership demographics, which will guide advertisers’ decision.
Lastly, the argument would be more convincing if we had evidence to claim lowering price will increase circulation and increased circulation would result in increased advertisement revenues. 
In conclusion, the argument is flawed due to above mentioned reasons. It could be considerably strengthened if detailed analysis of factors contributing for declined readers is done. Without the knowledge of full contributing factors, one cannot assess full merits of the decision. Hence the argument remains unsubstantiated and flawed.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

AWA Score: 4.5 out of 6!

I have used a GMATAWA auto-grader to evaluate your essay.

Coherence and connectivity: 2.5/5  
This rating corresponds to the flow of ideas and expressions from one paragraph to another. The effective use of connectives and coherence of assertive language in arguing for/against the argument is analyzed. This is deemed as one of the most important parameters.

Paragraph structure and formation: 3.5/5   
The structure and division of the attempt into appropriate paragraphs are evaluated. To score well on this parameter, it is important to organize the attempt into paragraphs. Preferable to follow the convention of leaving a line blank at the end of each paragraph, to make the software aware of the structure of the essay.

Vocabulary and word expression: 5.5/5 
This parameter rates the submitted essay on the range of relevant vocabulary possessed by the candidate basis the word and expression usage. There are no extra- points for bombastic word usage. Simple is the best form of suave!

Good Luck

Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five

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