Hi all, I would like to have my argument essay (severely) criticized. If you provide me with feedback I promise than in less than 3 days I will send mine to your essay. Here it comes: Analyze an Argument Topic: The following appeared in an e-mail sent by the marketing director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville. "Over the past ten years, there has been a 20 percent decline in the size of the average audience at Classical Shakespeare Theatre productions. In spite of increased advertising, we are attracting fewer and fewer people to our shows, causing our profits to decrease significantly. We must take action to attract new audience members. The best way to do so is by instituting a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program this summer. Two years ago the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a 'Free Plays in the Park' program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. Therefore, I recommend that we start a 'Shakespeare in the Park' program of our own. If we do so, I predict that our profits will also see a significant increase." Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation. Your Answer: The email covers a recommendation from the director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville to follow the same measures that other nearby company called Avon Repertory Company started two years ago in order to change the current deteriorating state of its profits. Despite the director exposes several reasons, plenty of additional information would be needed in order to assess whether following the same techniques as the Avon Company will have the desired result. One important question to be answered is how Avon Company has increased its profits. The director just establishes a tenuous and maybe incorrect cause-effect relationship between the institution of the 'Free-Plays in the Park' and the increase in profits of the company. There is no definite evidence that demonstrates this relationship. As such, the institution of these plays may not be the most important factor for the increase in profits of Avon company, and other more important changes were made two years ago which have not received the attention of the director from Bardville but that might have been crucial in the improvement of Avon. For example, it might be that they have changed the topics of the plays to more modern themes that attract current audience, or they might have reduced its costs by hiring less known, younger players. Therefore, a complete investigation of any measures taken by Avon which may have had an impact in the profits should be made. If it is found that the 'Free-plays' measure has had no effect or a minor one, then the recommendation is unlikely to change the situation in Bardville. In addition to that and connected to the previous point, the character of Avon company as well as its financial history should be reviewed. The director from Bardville explains that there has been a 10% increase in Avon profits since two years ago. However, this is hardly an informative measure of the success of the change. We do not know if the company was so small that by attracting one or two more viewers they have reached that profit improvement. For that reason, the size of the companies should be investigated. If the sizes of the companies were much different, then the impact of the measure will be likely smaller in the bigger one. Another very important aspect that needs attention is the differences between the people in Bardville and the people that go to the plays from Avon. Despite the author claims that the two companies are nearby, this is not a safe signal to ensure that whatever happens in the Avon area will have the same results in Bardville. The two areas might differ in important aspects that affect the likeness that residents go to the theatre or the likes of these. For example, the residents in Avon may like more traditional plays and Avon simply increased its profits by scheduling plays with classic themes. On the other hand, the people in Bardville may like more modern themes. Therefore, planning Shakespeare plays will not likely attract new viewers. Another factor will also be the availability of transport from one area to another. In that case, despite the differences in the residents likes, Bardville company could ensure some good audience from the neighborhood as long as they are willing to commute to see the plays. Therefore, the characteristics of the area and its differences with the area where Avon operates need to be assessed before assuming that the effect will be similar. In conclusion, it has been shown that there is fundamental information that needs to be gathered before we can be sure that the change in Bardville will have the desired effect.
