GMAT Essays (AWA)

Hi all. Appreciate any form feedback. I've applied some of the templates which I've came across at the forums. Topic and my essay as follows:

"Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury's circulation has decreased 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...

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The argument claims that The Mercury's circulation has declined by 10,000 readers because of the introduction of another lower priced newspaper, The Bugle, five years ago. The argument reasoned that The Mercury should be priced below The Bugle as this will, in turn, increase the circulation of The Mercury. As a result, more businesses will advertise in The Mercury. However, this argument fails to mention several factors based on which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions which have no clear evidence. Therefore, this argument is weak and has many flaws.

Firstly, the argument states that the decrease in The Mercury's circulation was due to The Bungle. This statement is a stretch because the author does provide evidence on the content provided by The Mercury and The Bungle. The author assumes that both newspapers provide the same content. However, that may not be true. For example, in United Kingdom, there are two types of newspaper - Financial Times and The Sun. The latter is a lower priced newspaper. Financial Times' content is mainly business related while The Sun covers almost any topic - from gossips to sports. As the content between the two newspapers is vastly different, the readership and target market is also not the same. Therefore, the author should elaborate and provide evidence on the content of the two newspapers.

Furthermore, the author argues that The Mercury pricing should be lowered, which will then lead to an increase in its circulation. However, the author does not provide statistical evidence on the correlation between price and circulation. More importantly, a lower price does not always lead to an increase in demand. To illustrate, demand for luxury goods may not increase by lowering the price because consumers will perceive the luxury goods as mass market products and hence, of an inferior quality. The author should therefore provide more information on The Mercury such as its target market.

The argument further claims that more businesses will buy advertising in The Mercury as a result of the increased circulation. The author assumes that there are only two newspapers in the market. What about other newspaper titles? Who are the current advertisers in The Mercury? What is the cost to advertise in The Mercury compared to other newspapers? Without answers to these questions, one is left thinking that this is a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In sum, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It should be considerably strengthened if the author mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits of the decision, it is important to have full knowledge of all the relevant facts. Without these facts, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.

Your introduction is awkward, it sounds like a re-write of the original question (which in itself isn't all that pleasant). The tense is off in the first two sentences. "The argument CLAIMS... The argument REASONED", either use CLAIMS...REASONS or CLAIMED...REASONED.

"This argument fails to mention several factors based on which it could be evaluated." This sentence is wordy and disorganized. I think you meant "This argument fails to mention several factors that could be evaluated." Again, this sentence as a whole could be reworded differently.

Anyway, that's the first paragraph for you!

The argument is weak. First, a drop in 10,000 readers over a period of five years is considered a significant loss of market share for Mercury. Mercury and Bugle when circulating their newspapers in a major city like New york where the population and growth rate are so high that a number of 10,000 readers is considered a insignificant share.Second,the argument assumes that apart from cost of newspaper no other factor has led to decline in Mercury's newspaper circulation as Bugle's news coverage can be more and at a better quality than Mercury's. Thus Mercury has no need to reduce its selling price.

Furthermore, by lowering the rates does Mercury attract the right kind of business advertisements that can suit the readers perspective of Mercury. An Economic times newspaper advertising new Hollywood movie can have little benifit. Thus lowering the cost of advertising without reduction in selling price must help Mercury attract the right advertisers to prefer Mercury to Bugle.



* I read that a 400 word stem is enough for argument analysis... please judge mine too.. this is my first AWA

@ havok: thanks for the feedback. the way i wrote it was basically memorising some lines and plugging them into my essay. maybe i will need to look @ how to reword them.
anyway, should i rephrase the argument or go state my point and go into the argument? i read somewhere that its always good to restate the questions... any other opinions?

Yeah, you can restate the argument, but paraphrase or reword it. Simply re-arranging the sentence looks lazy and unimaginative.

HSPA wrote:The argument is weak. First, a drop in 10,000 readers over a period of five years is considered a significant loss of market share for Mercury. Mercury and Bugle when circulating their newspapers in a major city like New york where the population and growth rate are so high that a number of 10,000 readers is considered a insignificant share.Second,the argument assumes that apart from cost of newspaper no other factor has led to decline in Mercury's newspaper circulation as Bugle's news coverage can be more and at a better quality than Mercury's. Thus Mercury has no need to reduce its selling price.

Furthermore, by lowering the rates does Mercury attract the right kind of business advertisements that can suit the readers perspective of Mercury. An Economic times newspaper advertising new Hollywood movie can have little benifit. Thus lowering the cost of advertising without reduction in selling price must help Mercury attract the right advertisers to prefer Mercury to Bugle.



* I read that a 400 word stem is enough for argument analysis... please judge mine too.. this is my first AWA

What's the argument?