Final Result

After all revision steps, tools, processes and peer-edits have been applied to the text, this is the final result:

It was and still is seen as normal that fair-trade products are sold at a higher retail price than non fair-trade products. Due to this higher retail price the sales rates of fair-trade companies, such as Day Chocolate, are not as high as those of non fair-trade companies who obtain their resources at debatable prices. Therefore, Day Chocolate decided to sell their products at the same retail price as their non fair-trade competitors. Consequently, they enabled buyers to have the feeling of being ethically responsible without having to pay more than usual. This convenience assists customers to exchange the products of established brands for those of an alternative fair-trade brand.

     The strategy used by Day Chocolate is the penetration pricing strategy. Penetration pricing is a technique that uses a low price to attract new customers to eventually achieve a high turnover rate (Monroe 2003). However, it will only create revenue if customers are willing to substitute their regular products for fair-trade products, which is, luckily for Day Chocolate, a tendency that was initiated a few years ago due to consumers becoming more aware of environmentally and ethically responsible consuming. To conclude, the penetration pricing technique enabled Day Chocolate to establish themselves in the (fair-trade) chocolate market and, due to the rise of customer awareness, to achieve a high turnover rate.

     A major problem that Day Chocolate faces is the fact that the demand for fair-trade products is highly elastic, because of inexpensive non fair-trade alternatives. According to Alfred Marshall: “the elasticity (or responsiveness) of demand in a market is great or small according as the amount demanded increases much or little for a given fall in price, and diminishes much or little for a given rise in price". Here, highly elastic demand means, that a slight increase in price could lead to a considerable loss in sales and vice versa. Therefore, Day Chocolate had to establish a bond with their customers to ensure that their customers will keep purchasing their products even if the price would rise. Knowing this, Day Chocolate started to participate in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the company even has its own Youtube channel. Nowadays there is no better way to establish and maintain relationships with customers than through the internet. By doing this, Day Chocolate created a unique bond not only between the company and its customers, but also between its suppliers and customers, so to overcome the problem of high elasticity of their fair-trade products.

Reflection:
I found the whole series of steps quite time-consuming, and not applicable to every assignment that we have to write. But there are some steps that, individually, can be very helpful to all future assigments.

Step 3.2: Exchange ideas on web tools and writing processes

Withe the checkered flag in sight, there is still one last step to perform. The last step involves all subgroup members, which are in my case: Ruben den Boer, Nico Lerch and Bart Loer. The purpose of this step is to come up with a summary of the findings about the tools and processes used.

We found the processes to be very useful, except for the "role play the audience" method. Why we did not like this method due to the fact that it is hard to imagine how an audience is going to react. Taking a break is always useful, not only to create distance between writing and proofreading as mentioned in the assignment, but also during the writing process. Reading the paper out loud enables a writer to identify possible fluency errors that might have been left unnoticed when reading in your head and is therefore also very helpful when revising a text.

Of all tools and processes we found the Vocabulary Profiler (VP) in combination with Thesaurus the most convenient. When analysing a text by using the VP, one can easily see what type of words are used. When trying to make the text more academic, you can look up alternatives for K1 or K2 words by using the Thesaurus tool and then by copying all the synonyms into the VP the AWL words can easily be picked out and checked for contextual relevance. In addition to the Thesaurus tool, the AWL list can be used to find AWL words that might increase the academical value of your text. A disadvantage of this method is that it is time-consuming.

Another convenient tool is the self-editing worksheet, provided by the book Writing Academic English. This worksheet contains a series of questions, with which the unity and coherence of a text can be easily analysed, due to its clear overview. A method on which we could not agree is the self-check error list. It was mentioned that the list provides a long-term benefit, by identifying frequent errors a writer tends to make. However, it was also argued that it is easy to overlook an error in the text, because sometimes a sentence sounds correct, but in fact is not.

The JustTheWord (JTW) tool, assists a writer to find the correct contextual meaning of a word. However, this is not a problem I faced during the previous steps, so I did not use this tool to revise my text. But during the meeting it was mentioned that it is a very helpful method. The last tool that was used in the revision process was Concordancers, a tool that did not provide me with beneficial changes. I found its interface busy and hard to use without a guide. Therefore, I found this tool to be time-consuming.

The last tool that I used during this assignment was the VP Cloze Builder. This tool is not helpful during the revision process, but can be very helpful to maintain and establish an academic vocabulary.

To conclude, all the above mentioned tools and processes can be useful, but in their own way.

Step 3.1: Peer-edit you partner's writing

This is the step where another pair of eyes look at my text to identify errors I might have overlooked. This will be done by using the Peer-Editing Worksheet 2 from the book Writing Academic English. The worksheet looks as follows:

And here are Florian's findings (March 8, 2011):

It was and still is seen as normal that fair-trade products are sold at a higher retail price than non-fair-trade products, and this higher retail price is why the sales rates of fair-trade companies, such as Day Chocolate, are not as high as those of non-fair-trade companies who obtain their resources at debatable prices (long introduction sentence). Therefore, Day Chocolate decided to sell their products at the same retail price as their non-fair-trade competitors. Consequently, they enabled buyers to have the feeling of being ethically responsible without having to pay more than usual (could have been more academic)  . This convenience assists customers to make the step from (exchange)  established brands to(for) an alternative  fair-trade brand.

    

 The strategy used by Day Chocolate is the penetration pricing strategy. Penetration pricing is a technique that uses a low price to attract new customers to eventually achieve a high turnover rate (Monroe 2003). However, it will only create revenue if customers are willing to substitute their regular products for fair-trade products, which is, luckily for Day Chocolate, a tendency that was initiated a few years ago due to people becoming more aware of environmentally and ethically responsible consuming. To conclude, the penetration pricing technique enabled Day Chocolate to establish themselves in the (fair-trade) chocolate market and, due to the rise of customer awareness, to achieve a high turnover rate.

    

A major problem that Day Chocolate faces is the fact that the demand for fair-trade products is highly elastic, because of inexpensive non fair-trade alternatives. According to Alfred Marshall: “the elasticity (or responsiveness) of demand in a market is great or small according as the amount demanded increases much or little for a given fall in price, and diminishes much or little for a given rise in price". Here, highly elastic demand means, that a slight increase in price could lead to a considerable loss in sales and vice versa. Therefore, Day Chocolate had to establish a bond with their customers to ensure that their customers will keep purchasing their products even if the price would rise. Knowing this, Day Chocolate started to participate in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the company even has its own Youtube channel.

 Nowadays there is no better way to establish and maintain relationships with customers than through the internet. By doing this, Day Chocolate created a unique bond not only between the company and its customers, but also between its suppliers and customers, so to overcome the problem of high elasticity of their fair-trade products.

Answers to the worksheet:

1.        Yes. How Day Chocolate solves certain issues related to performing a fair-trade business and what options there are to soften the effects of the high elasticity.

2.        Yes.

3.        It was and still is seen as normal that fair-trade products are sold at a higher retail price than non-fair-trade products, and this higher retail price is why the sales rates of fair-trade companies, such as Day Chocolate, are not as high as those of non-fair-trade companies who obtain their resources at debatable prices.

4.        3/4

a. He introduces ideas of well-known experts, such as quotes from Alfred Marshall, and implements certain theories about the topic, found in the marketing book.

            b. No.

5.        No.

6.        Yes.

            a. Price (elasticity)

            b. Yes.

            c. However, Here, Therefore.

d. The structure starts with introducing the topic and provide basic facts to support his arguments later on. Secondly, implemented strategy. Thirdly, pricing of products. Finally, conclude with their solution.

7.        Nowadays there is no better way (informal/ maybe to extreme) to establish and maintain relationships with customers than through the internet. By doing this, Day Chocolate created a unique bond not only between the company and its customers, but also between its suppliers and customers, so to overcome the problem of high elasticity of their fair-trade products.

            A real conclusion is not provided. A ending-sentence would be pleasant to summarize or finalize your thoughts or topic. 

8.        He made use of a nice quote to back up his findings.

Personally, I liked the paper, it was well-written and pleasant to read. However, at some points the structure might have been slightly more clear. Nevertheless, the use of academic words was considerably good, though as I mentioned some words were quite extreme and slightly informal. Finally, the provided facts/ supporting arguments did really relate to the topic and supported the topic sentences.

Taking Florian's remarks into account I revised my part. Since the MS Word Track Changes tool does not show on a copy/paste text I posted a print screen off the first two paragraphs, which needed a revision. The third paragraph is left unchanged.

Reflection:
As we can see above, this step indeed resulted in discovering more errors. Therefore, this is one I will definitely be using for future assignments.

Step 3: Peer-editing and exchanging ideas

The upcoming step is maybe even more important than the previous steps. Because this step provides the writer, which in this case is me, with a new insight on his own writing. Due to the fact that another pair of eyes looks at the text differently than I do. The following posts will consist of a peer-edit by Florian Arndt, who checked my text for errors I might not have noticed not notice. The last post of this step will be a summary of my group's findings about the tools and processes used.

The final result after my revision process

After editing the text during the previous steps I made some minor and major changes, but both were just as important to the end result:

It was and still is seen as normal that fair-trade products are sold at a higher retail price than non fair-trade products, and this higher retail price is why the sales rates of fair-trade companies, such as Day Chocolate, are not as high as those of non fair-trade companies who obtain their resources at debatable prices. Therefore, Day Chocolate decided to sell their products at the same retail price as their non fair-trade competitors. Consequently, they enabled buyers to have the feeling of being ethically responsible without having to pay more than usual. This convenience assists customers to make the step from established brands to an alternative  fair-trade brand.

     The strategy used by Day Chocolate is the penetration pricing strategy. Penetration pricing is a technique that uses a low price to attract new customers to eventually achieve a high turnover rate (Monroe 2003). However, it will only create revenue if customers are willing to substitute their regular products for fair-trade products, which is, luckily for Day Chocolate, a tendency that was initiated a few years ago due to people becoming more aware of environmentally and ethically responsible consuming. To conclude, the penetration pricing technique enabled Day Chocolate to establish themselves in the (fair-trade) chocolate market and, due to the rise of customer awareness, to achieve a high turnover rate.

     A major problem that Day Chocolate faces is the fact that the demand for fair-trade products is highly elastic, because of inexpensive non fair-trade alternatives. According to Alfred Marshall: “the elasticity (or responsiveness) of demand in a market is great or small according as the amount demanded increases much or little for a given fall in price, and diminishes much or little for a given rise in price". Here, highly elastic demand means, that a slight increase in price could lead to a considerable loss in sales and vice versa. Therefore, Day Chocolate had to establish a bond with their customers to ensure that their customers will keep purchasing their products even if the price would rise. Knowing this, Day Chocolate started to participate in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the company even has its own Youtube channel. Nowadays there is no better way to establish and maintain relationships with customers than through the internet. By doing this, Day Chocolate created a unique bond not only between the company and its customers, but also between its suppliers and customers, so to overcome the problem of high elasticity of their fair-trade products.

2.5: Make a gapfill exercise

During the next step I will use an exercise tool that is called VP Cloze Builder. This tool creates a gap fill exercise from a submitted text, by hiding AWL words. So whenever you feel the need to exercise your AWL vocabulary, it is possible to create your own exercise.
For the exercise I created I used "The Economics of English" article, with which I created the following gap fill exercise:

achieve  acknowledgement  adapt  apparently  assignments  assistants  available  called  challenge  challenging  comment  computer  computers  consequently  contrary  corporate  emerged  enhance  eventually  expand  financial  global  individual  initial  instance  investment  job  jobs  media  orientation  require  requires  resources  sector  similar  so  stressful  technically

Posted by : Michael Mandel on November 08 Does India have enough English-speaking workers? Here’s an interesting [1] __________from an Indian columnist , Sucheta Dalal. She writes : The BPO and IT industries today absorb [2] __________much of the smart , [3] __________qualified and eminently employable talent that there is a serious shortage of people for other , not-so-paying , smaller businesses who also need [4] __________skill sets. [5] __________to the bleeding-heart view about BPO employees being stuck in [6] __________and monotonous [7] __________, those earning high call-centre salaries are unwilling to consider less-paying but more [8] ___________employment that [9] __________ aptitude , learning and slower [10] __________growth. She then goes on to say : it is necessary to address an important differentiator that has already [11] __________in the [12] __________market today. It is the earning difference between those who are conversant with the English language and those who aren’t. Salary differences between equally qualified ( non-professional/technical) candidates can be as high as 400 to 500 per cent. In fact , the more fancied [13] __________in airlines , hotels , [14] ___________, banks and [15] __________services only to those who know English , the rest are forced into less fancied [16] __________. Ironically enough , the wide gap in earning starts from [17] __________where literacy levels are less important; for [18] __________, counter staff and waiters. The best [20] __________ with the upmarket shopping malls , multiational fast-food chains and tony restaurants go to those who can speak English along with the mandatory fluency in local languages. The [21] __________market in the services [22] __________is likely to [23] __________furiously as malls , multiplexes , food courts , and large retail chains [24] __________operations across India , moving from the cities to larger towns. This growth will only accelerate if the government [25] __________ permits Foreign Direct [26] __________in the Retail [27] ___________, letting in large retail chains such as Wal-Mart. Unfortunately , there is no concerted effort as yet by the [28] __________ [29] __________, NGOs or even social organisations to help improve their English-speaking skills and confidence levels to prepare for the coming boom. [30] ___________, there is already a serious shortage of employable; human [31] __________in the service [32] __________. My own effort to help a young girl , desperate to improve her English through a formal programme in Mumbai drew a blank. Her big ambition is to land a sales [33] __________ in a smart food or retail chain. I found that the few private tutors [34] __________are astonishingly expensive. On the other hand , I found it much easier to sponsor her for a basic and inexpensive [35] __________course in the use of [36] __________that was run by an NGO [37] __________Pratham. The Chinese [38] __________hired football stadiums to teach the English language and [39] __________employment opportunities. In India , language chauvinism bars frank discussion or an [40] __________that English is now the [41] __________language of commerce. In his Independence Day address in August 2004 , President A. Abdul Kalam talked about the need to [42] __________100 per cent literacy by increasing our education expenditure. The bigger [43] __________ in the coming years will be to [44] __________ our school and college curricula to meet the demands of changing society , [45] __________market and [46] __________aspirations. This will mean inclusion of language skills , [47] __________literacy and vocational training at the school level. That in turn will [48] ___________[49] ____________in finding and employing better trained and better paid teachers to prepare students for a better India. Are we even making a beginning in that direction? http : www. usinessweek. om/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2005/11/the_economics_o. tml

Reflection:
This step could be of great influence to your academic vocabulary, but is not a useful tool to use when revising a text. Therefore, this step did not provide new insights regarding my text.

2.4: Check contextual meanings with concordances

When using AWL words or words you do not know, it is often hard to find the correct context in which these words should be placed. Luckily there is a tool on the internet that is specially programmed to help you with this problem, the Concordancer.
When entering a word into this programme, a list of sentences from published writings comes up to show how this word is put into context. By looking at these sentences you can check what type of context is the best for this word or if you used the correct one. A helpful option is the associated word option. With this option you check if two words can be put in the same context.

Since this tool did not result in me discovering any relevant conclusions or findings, I will show how it works.

Its homepage looks more difficult than it actually is, because the only parts of this page that you need to think of are the red circled parts and the optional blue circled part. In the first red circle you enter a word that you would like the know the context that it is used in of. The second red circle allows you to choose from which type of sources you would like to consult, so to specify the context that it is used in, in your field of specialization (for instance, law or medical). I am going to enter the word "customer", since this is a relevant word to our study. For the source I chose BNC written, as described in the assignment.

When pressing "get concordance", a list of sentences pops up. These sentences contain the word you looked for in the correct context. If the context you used the word in is not on this list, you should better revise the sentence.