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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level."
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.
The business manager indicates that since the television station has devoted less time to weather and local news, there has been some complaints as well as cancellation of advertising contracts from local businesses. To reverse this trend, he recommends that the station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news. The argument seems to be cogent at first glance, but it reveals several logical flaws, as some key evidences are not shown.
To begin with, the manager points out that the complaints received in the past year are mainly concerned with the station’s coverage of weather and local news, and thus, indicating viewers’ desire to watch such programs. However, the manager does not mention about the total number of complaints received last year(how many complaints received last years). Perhaps the complaints are only from a very small proportion of viewers and most people are satisfied with time reduction of the weather and local news programs. If this is the case, such complaints can not represent the overall situations. Without detailed information about the exact number of the complaints received regarding the coverage of weather and local news, I will not be convinced by the recommendation given by the manager.
Secondly, the cancellation of advertisement contracts between the station and local firms is mentioned by the manager to support his recommendation, as he assumes that the termination of advertising compacts is related to the program adjustment, which is to reduce the time of weather and local news. However, the termination of advertising contracts may just be a coincidence with the time reduction of weather and local news programs. It is entirely possible that local economy is facing a recession and companies have to cut down their cost in order to withstand the dilemma. Moreover, perhaps local enterprises are switching to online advertisements, as such type of advertisements are more effective to attract viewers. Unless the manager presents detailed investigation about the exact reason why local businesses canceled their advertisement contracts with the station, the assumption he makes to correlate contract cancellation with program adjustment is unjustified.
In sum, the manager fails to point out some significant evidences to buttress his suggestion which is to restore the time devoted to weather and local news, for example the data about the exact number of the complaints and reasons why local businesses terminate the contracts. Without such evidences, it leaves the argument unwarranted.
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'regarding', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'thus', 'well', 'for example', 'as well as', 'to begin with']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.270880361174 0.25644967241 106% => OK
Verbs: 0.160270880361 0.15541462614 103% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0925507900677 0.0836205057962 111% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0451467268623 0.0520304965353 87% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0248306997743 0.0272364105082 91% => OK
Prepositions: 0.110609480813 0.125424944231 88% => OK
Participles: 0.0428893905192 0.0416121511921 103% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.00080109038 2.79052419416 108% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0406320541761 0.026700313972 152% => OK
Particles: 0.00677200902935 0.001811407834 374% => OK
Determiners: 0.10835214447 0.113004496875 96% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.00902934537246 0.0255425247493 35% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00902934537246 0.0127820249294 71% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2578.0 2731.13054187 94% => OK
No of words: 401.0 446.07635468 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.4289276808 6.12365571057 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.47492842339 4.57801047555 98% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.399002493766 0.378187486979 106% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.351620947631 0.287650121315 122% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.239401496259 0.208842608468 115% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.179551122195 0.135150697306 133% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00080109038 2.79052419416 108% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 207.018472906 91% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471321695761 0.469332199767 100% => OK
Word variations: 50.7003528893 52.1807786196 97% => OK
How many sentences: 15.0 20.039408867 75% => OK
Sentence length: 26.7333333333 23.2022227129 115% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.0049917679 57.7814097925 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 171.866666667 141.986410481 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.7333333333 23.2022227129 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.0 0.724660767414 138% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.14285714286 78% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 61.8954280964 51.9672348444 119% => OK
Elegance: 1.8431372549 1.8405768891 100% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.608065934219 0.441005458295 138% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.144937328487 0.135418324435 107% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.107230207108 0.0829849096947 129% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.625563984171 0.58762219726 106% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.1652495705 0.147661913831 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.292632833554 0.193483328276 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.149855874243 0.0970749176394 154% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.536590108874 0.42659136922 126% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0756057517353 0.0774707102158 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.478097781246 0.312017818177 153% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0147530559899 0.0698173142475 21% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.33743842365 72% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.82512315271 62% => OK
Positive topic words: 6.0 6.46551724138 93% => OK
Negative topic words: 5.0 5.36822660099 93% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.82389162562 106% => OK
Total topic words: 14.0 14.657635468 96% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.