The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company. "According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in an

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The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.

"According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

The advertising director asserts that the reason for the fewer people attending the Super-Screen produced movies is the lack of awareness about the quality of movies among people. The argument is based on a series of assumptions and is weak and unconvincing as it stands.

Firstly, the author contrasts the poor attendance for movies with the higher percentage of positive reviews about specific movies. The argument assumes that the statistics of poor attendance are constant over time. It is highly possible that the people attended the specific movies with good reviews in large numbers, while the other movies received with considerably poor viewership. Rather than citing average attendance for various movies, each movie should be considered case-by-case with the reviews for proper understanding of the poor attendance. Without citing enough reliable statistics of attendance for individual movies, the contrast provided in the argument is unconvincing.

Furthermore, the positive reviews about specific movies lacks substantiation and hardly suffices to correlate good reviews with higher attendance. The movie reviews may be based on technical aspects of the movie, whereas people are primarily concerned with the entertainment provided by the movie. At the same time, the author fails to consider other compelling factors such as the simultaneous release of other movies and the cultural events during the movie release, that could affect the movie viewership adversely. For instance, relase of competitor movies around the same time could distribute public over the movies and lead to reduced attendance for a particular movie. Also, other cultural events such as festivals coinciding with the movie release schedule could hamper the movie ticket sales. Without considering these factors, the conclusion derived by the author about the lack of public awareness of good quality movies is weak and lacks credibility.

Thirdly, the author's recommendation to allocate greater budget for advertising to reach more people is based on unsubstantiated evidence. The argument firstly assumes that lack of awareness among public resulted in the poor movie attendance. With considering the other reasons for poor attendance cited above, this advice on the part of the author amounts to particularly poor advice. It is highly likely that people are aware of the movies, and the budget would thus be better utilized to improve movie quality and provide entertainment that would attract larger audiences.

In summary, the argument is based on a series of unproven assumptions and does not take all facts into consideration. In order to assess the merits of the argument, all the depended factors should be known and evaluated effectively. Without providing clear statistics and evidence, the argument gives the impression of wishful thinking and is open to debate.

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Average: 8.5 (2 votes)
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Sentence: Furthermore, the positive reviews about specific movies lacks substantiation and hardly suffices to correlate good reviews with higher attendance.
Description: The fragment movies lacks substantiation is rare
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace lacks with verb, base: uninflected present, imperative or infinitive

Sentence: For instance, relase of competitor movies around the same time could distribute public over the movies and lead to reduced attendance for a particular movie.
Error: relase Suggestion: release

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Sentence Length SD: 5.22 7.5

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 439 350
No. of Characters: 2383 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.577 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.428 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.797 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 98 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.95 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.22 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5