flo3 wrote:
Hi everyone, this is my first attempt on the AWA. Can you please help rate my essay? Thank you.
Prompt:
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.
Essay:
The argument made by the publisher of The Mercury claims The Mercury should reduce the price of its newspaper to be lowered than that of The Bugle, its competitor, until the newspaper can recover its circulation to former level. By doing that, the publisher assumes that this will attract more business to purchase advertising space in its newspaper. Stated in this way, the argument not only fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated, but also manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumption for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak and contains several flaws.
First, the argument readily claims that reducing the price of its newspaper will allow The Mercury to recover the circulation level. Even if the price of The Bugle’s newspaper is lowered than that of The Mercury, it is a stretch to assume that The Mercury will be able to recover the circulation by setting the newspaper price lower than that of The Bugle. There are numerous factors that may lead to the success of The Bugle such as presenting what is on the demand content in its newspaper and having wide distribution network. The argument failed to consider that these factors may actually be the key reason why people are switching to its competitor. The argument would have been more convincing if the publisher can explain the reason why lower pricing is the key reason to people switch to The Bugle’s newspaper.
Second, the argument assumes the decline in its circulation was mainly due to the rise of The Bugle. This explicitly shows that the argument believes that The Bugle is the only reason why people stop purchasing The Mercury’s newspaper. This is again a very weak and unsupported assumption made by the publisher as the argument doesn’t demonstrate any correlation between The Bugle’s newspaper circulation and The Mercury’s newspaper circulation. The decline in The Mercury circulation may be due to external factor. For example, the rise of technology has forever changed how many people consume the information, many switch from newspaper to social media as a main source of news provider because social media is more up to date and give a unique experience that newspaper can’t compete with. If the argument could provide evidence to clarify that circulation of The Bugle’s newspaper is correlated to the decline of The Mercury’s newspaper, the argument would be been more convincing.
Finally, the argument concludes that the business will be interested to buy advertising space in the paper after the circulation level is recovered through price reduction plan. The argument again failed to provide concrete evidence to back up its conclusion. Without any evidence to show that the business will be interested to buy the advertisement, the conclusion of the argument is rather weak and unsubstantial.
To conclude, the argument contains several flaws and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts and considered all gave the example to back up the claims.
Words: 607
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Here is the evaluation report
AWA Score: 5 out of 6
Coherence and connectivity: 4.5/5
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: 4/5
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