The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station:
"To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth in our listening area, but that growth has resulted mainly from people moving here after their retirement. We must make listeners of these new residents. We could switch to a music format tailored to their tastes, but a continuing decline in local sales of recorded mu-sic suggests limited interest in music. Instead we should change to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
Version 2.
It is reasonable that the manager of the WWAC radio station wants to create a plan to in-crease listenership. While some preliminary investigation has been conducted as to the reason for decline in listener numbers, more information is needed to determine if the manager has proposed changes which will benefit the station. Evidence will replace speculation. Such evidence should include a survey of population growth, demographics and entertainment preferences. The manager states that the population growth in the area is composed of mostly retired people and resolves to make these new residents fans of WWAC. She also states that news and talk is an increasingly popular radio format in the area, and that interest in mu-sic is on the decline. To ensure that WWAC will capture the support of the new retired residents and regain prior listeners, the manager should ensure that her statements are accurate.
First, data on the age, gender, and entertainment tastes of the local residents and station listeners should be gathered. This information will help the manager decide if it is wise to reformat the station to target an elderly population. The manager’s campaign will be misdirected if a) the population growth is not composed of elderly people, b) this new demographic does not specifically prefer news-and-talk over music, c) the new growth is not a significant number compared to the whole, or d) the demographic of existing listenership far outweighs the gains of some new elderly listeners.
Secondly, evidence must reveal whether the format of the radio station is the reason that listenership has declined. There are other possible causes for a decline in listeners, meaning that reformatting will not have the intended effect. In such case, the manager will have to ad-dress the issue in another way. The decline could be due to lack of advertising the station, too many commercial breaks, or from intensified competition from other stations or online sources. Most critically, music has a broad spectrum. Even rock-n-roll has many subcategories. Perhaps the general format should remain music, and only the genre of that music changed.
Lastly, there must be support for the manager’s claim that interest in news and talk is increasing in popularity and that music as a listening category is on the decline. If these statements can be verified and that the shift in preferences is substantial, then the new radio format is logical. However, the manager makes these claims based on assumptions which are erroneous. She concludes that a drop in sales at local music stores indicates loss of interest in mu-sic in general. Yet it is well known that many people now listen to music for free online, or for little cost through curated phone apps, such as Spotify. If attendance at live music events has stayed level, this would contradict the manager’s theory.
Ultimately, the WWAC manager must dedicate more time to gathering information before making a change to the radio format to target new residents. She must ensure that the number and demographic of the new residents will be substantial enough to justify re-marketing for them. She must understand the reason for decline in of her audience, and also determine if the news-and-talk format is actually more popular than music at present. If any one of these components is not true, the change in format will be wasted time and effort, and perhaps continued decline in listenership.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 565 350
No. of Characters: 2837 1500
No. of Different Words: 252 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.875 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.021 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.792 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.179 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.434 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.268 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.476 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 917, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nsure that her statements are accurate. First, data on the age, gender, and ente...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 288, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'a' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: a; the
...nager’s campaign will be misdirected if a the population growth is not composed of el...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 655, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d only the genre of that music changed. Lastly, there must be support for the ma...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, well, while, as to, in general, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2918.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 565.0 441.139720559 128% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16460176991 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87542086881 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89447693216 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 259.0 204.123752495 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.458407079646 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 917.1 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.7159432745 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.074074074 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.9259259259 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.11111111111 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.287313169253 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.072872626239 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0445093978249 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.16702616445 0.128457276422 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0517907620663 0.0628817314937 82% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.