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.
According to the memorandum, the business manager’s suggestion is to increase the coverage of local news and weather news in all news programs in order to lure more viewers and advertisers. The manager backs up his suggestion by mentioning that the channel received many complaints regarding the less coverage of local and weather news and some of advertising contracts have been canceled for the same reason. At first the the argument seems valid, however, a detailed analysis of the argument and the provided evidence reveals some unwarranted assumptions made by author, which can be proved wrong later.
First assumption, which author makes is the complaints from viewers - regarding coverage of local news - were about only the program that is broadcasted at late night. But, the author suggests to increase the broadcast of local news in all news programs instead of late night news program, so both assumption and suggestion seem highly disconnected. Moreover author does not mention about the reason of complaints from previous years. It could be possible that, the channel has always devoted equal time to national news and local news and only in last year, it has increased time for national news by a small amount say about 10 minutes in late night program. This possibility weakens the author’s argument
Second assumption, which author makes is , the reason for cancellation of advertisement contracts from local business is due to reduced amount of local news. However this may not be true, there might be other reasons for cancelling of advertisements as more viewership for a program calls for more advertisements. For example, if the quality of late night programs is not good enough to attract people, they may prefer not to watch it or go for some other channels, thus, reducing the number of viewers. It is also possible that, the area where the television station is prevalent, people in that area may tend to sleep early or engage in some other activities instead of watching television at night. This might be a reason for reduced number of viewers at night and leading to cancellation of advertisements.
Third assumption which author makes is, all of the viewers of the channel are interested in local and weather news and no evidence is provided to prove that this assumption is correct. If, the viewers of the channel prefer to watch programs other than news like- reality shows, sports and movies - the author’s argument does not hold water. Moreover, author assumes that, increasing the time for local news will definitely attract more viewers despite of the quality of program or the time at which the program is broadcasted. If, the broadcasted program has pathetic quality content or the if the timings are odd like during the working hours in which most of the people will be working, increasing the coverage of local and weather news does not make any difference in the number of viewers.
To conclude, because of the aforementioned reasons, the author fails to present a cogent argument in front of audience. The author’s argument would have made more sense, if, he had presented some substantive evidence like - tendency of people to watch more news programs over others, actual reason for cancellation of ads - to bolster his assumptions. Without such data it is very difficult to establish the validity of argument. Thus, the television channel must be cautious before taking any decisions based on manager’s suggestion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 567 350
No. of Characters: 2824 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.88 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.981 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.664 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 165 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.976 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 420, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... canceled for the same reason. At first the the argument seems valid, however, a detail...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 420, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... canceled for the same reason. At first the the argument seems valid, however, a detail...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 351, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Moreover,
...nd suggestion seem highly disconnected. Moreover author does not mention about the reaso...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 41, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...Second assumption, which author makes is , the reason for cancellation of advertis...
^^
Line 5, column 159, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...is due to reduced amount of local news. However this may not be true, there might be ot...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 41, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...Third assumption which author makes is, all of the viewers of the channel are interested i...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, third, thus, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2909.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 567.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13051146384 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87972968509 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77699985148 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433862433862 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 887.4 705.55239521 126% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 49.8540620211 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.45 119.503703932 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.35 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.65 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.374138664237 0.218282227539 171% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.125977790425 0.0743258471296 169% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.112530098401 0.0701772020484 160% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.222134120747 0.128457276422 173% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.117087378447 0.0628817314937 186% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.77 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.