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 compl

Essay topics:

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 recommendation is trying to persuade the station to change their programs to their former routines. Based on some evidence such as increasing complaints from audience and decreasing investment contracts. At the first glance, those seem convincing, however, more cautious consideration of evidence, data, and feedback from audience should be added by the author.

First, increasing complaints from viewers are received by the television station. However, the author fails to mention who and how many are those complaints and what are the things that bother them. Because, there are maybe just a minimal part of the whole audience who complaint, and they maybe unpleasant of the new anchor. Besides, although complaints are increasing, it may also mean that more audience start to concern the programs and they provide their own suggestions to the station about what they want to watch and care on TV. Unless the author provide more evidence about more detail information of the audience and their complaints, whether the new programs are not good can be valued.

Second, due to the canceling advertising contracts, the author thinks the problem must from the new programs. However, the author neglects the problem may come from those companies themselves. Some of the local businesses may suffer financial problems then they can not capable of spending extra money on advertising the TV station anymore. If things like this, the new program can not be blamed for losing advertising contracts. In addition, another possibility may come from other programs aired on the TV. Some of the details may offend those companies and they decide not to cooperate with the station. Unless the author rules out all those potential reasons, the new program can not be unfairly criticized.

Finally, the author deems that by restore the former programs can revive their TV station. But there is no evidence that can prove the author's assumption. Without the exact statistics of the former and present performance of the TV station, there is no way to compare which of them is more welcomed. Then there is no way to evaluate the true reflections of the two programs. And the author fails to consider other options besides restoring the former program, such as improving the quality of the contents of program and refreshing the style of the anchor are both significant factors to grasp the audience's attentions. And also the author can set up a well-rounded and objective survey of their audience to see which kind of program they prefer the most and their recommendation of the present program.

To sum up, without more evidence like audience's exact feedbacks and the condition of the companies, the author's recommendation can not be convincing and feasible although it is out of truly concern of the future development of the TV station.

Votes
Average: 7.7 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Sentence: Unless the author provide more evidence about more detail information of the audience and their complaints, whether the new programs are not good can be valued.
Description: The fragment author provide more is rare
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace provide with verb, present tense, 3rd person singular
Description: The fragment not good can is rare
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace good with adverb

Sentence: Finally, the author deems that by restore the former programs can revive their TV station.
Description: The word by is not usually used as an adverb
Suggestion: Refer to by , by restoring

flaws:
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 462 350
No. of Characters: 2320 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.636 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.022 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.669 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.759 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.773 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.535 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5