The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.
"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument states that since the television station has devoted more time to national news, there has been a number of complaints received as well as cancellations with local businesses that used to advertise on this television station. Thus the business manager believes that in order to attract more viewers and increase their revenues, the television station sould resort back to more time devoted to the weather and local news. At first glance, this argument seems convincing, however, careful scrutiny and further investigation is needed to strengthen the author's statement.
First and foremost, the author states that most of the complaints they have received were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. The author fails to provide any information on the statistics or numbers of these complaints as well as the specific content of these complaints. Were there already a number of complaints before the station switched over to the national news program? If so, how many? Perhaps the number of complaints have actually decreased over this time? There is no comparison as to how much these complaints have changed from before and after the station increased their time devoted to national news. Furthermore, the content of the complaints is not specified. What exactly were the viewers unsatisfied with? Was it the actual length of time of the programs, or the TV anchors themselves that were hosting the programs? Again, no information is provided and therefore the aforementioned argument does not help strengthen the author's claim.
Second, the author states that local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts with the televison station. The author does not provide any evidence of correlation between increasing time to national news and cancellations of these contracts. Could it be that the number of contracts were already declining from before the television station switched over? How many contracts were there to begin with? Is there perhaps a newer, more innovative television station that the viewers have now switched to followed by these advertising companies? Perhaps the advertising companies have switched over to different methods of advertising such as the radio or the internet? Again, other options need to be investigated as to why these contracts were cancelled before the author can assume that these cancellations were due to the increased time to national news.
Other factors also need to be taken into consideration as to why this television station has lost its viewers. Perhaps the audience is no longer interested in news or weather at all, and are more concerned with entertainment, reality TV shows and celebrity gossip? A detailed analysis of viewership during hours of all programs on the television station is needed to produce a stronger contention.
In conclusion, the argument is rife with loopholes and assumptions that lack cogency and evidence. Thus, a more critical analysis should be provided in order to provide a sound argument.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 240, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...o advertise on this television station. Thus the business manager believes that in o...
^^^^
Line 1, column 564, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...vestigation is needed to strengthen the authors statement. First and foremost, the a...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 110, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...y have received were concerned with the stations coverage of weather and local news. The...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 138, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... its viewers. Perhaps the audience is no longer interested in news or weather at ...
^^
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'also', 'first', 'furthermore', 'however', 'if', 'second', 'so', 'then', 'therefore', 'thus', 'well', 'as to', 'in conclusion', 'such as', 'as well as', 'to begin with']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.265895953757 0.25644967241 104% => OK
Verbs: 0.16570327553 0.15541462614 107% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0674373795761 0.0836205057962 81% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0597302504817 0.0520304965353 115% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0154142581888 0.0272364105082 57% => OK
Prepositions: 0.119460500963 0.125424944231 95% => OK
Participles: 0.0500963391137 0.0416121511921 120% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.86328348105 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0423892100193 0.026700313972 159% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.121387283237 0.113004496875 107% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.00385356454721 0.0255425247493 15% => Some modal verbs wanted.
WH_determiners: 0.0211946050096 0.0127820249294 166% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3031.0 2731.13054187 111% => OK
No of words: 477.0 446.07635468 107% => OK
Chars per words: 6.35429769392 6.12365571057 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67336384929 4.57801047555 102% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.406708595388 0.378187486979 108% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.345911949686 0.287650121315 120% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.243186582809 0.208842608468 116% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.16142557652 0.135150697306 119% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86328348105 2.79052419416 103% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 207.018472906 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.429769392034 0.469332199767 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 48.059816768 52.1807786196 92% => OK
How many sentences: 25.0 20.039408867 125% => OK
Sentence length: 19.08 23.2022227129 82% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.5369961988 57.7814097925 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.24 141.986410481 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.08 23.2022227129 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.68 0.724660767414 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 3.58251231527 112% => OK
Readability: 53.6711949686 51.9672348444 103% => OK
Elegance: 1.808 1.8405768891 98% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.570153443723 0.441005458295 129% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.116774027952 0.135418324435 86% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0874457758404 0.0829849096947 105% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.536475234963 0.58762219726 91% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.145599751913 0.147661913831 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.219488137662 0.193483328276 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109971206997 0.0970749176394 113% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.406033365764 0.42659136922 95% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.162869198832 0.0774707102158 210% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.370807880955 0.312017818177 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.136609916552 0.0698173142475 196% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.33743842365 84% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.87684729064 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.82512315271 104% => OK
Positive topic words: 7.0 6.46551724138 108% => OK
Negative topic words: 12.0 5.36822660099 224% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 21.0 14.657635468 143% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.