The argument to be analyzed is as follows:
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 of the Super Screen Movie production Company, in his memo, concludes that the company should allocate a greater share of its budget to advertising in the coming year in order to reach out more people. The conclusion reached upon is based on arguments that are rife with fallacies.
To begin with, the director states that over the past year, the number of people attending the Super screen produced movie was lesser than previous years. However, the percentage of positive reviews have increased and thus the director believes that their content is not reaching enough viewers. Here, the first assumption made is that of the strength of people viewing Super screen movies being the least until today. We have no information to prove the above point. Secondly, the increase in positive reviews from the few who watched the movies could be because they were the only few who probably appreciated the Super screen produced movies and not because the movies were actually good. Last but not the least, how do we know that the content is "not" reaching enough viewers? What if their content is boring and insipid for the taste of the people? Hence, if the above questions and reason is true, the argument made on the increase in positive reviews fails to hold water.
Another major fallacy in the assumption made by the director is the understanding of the root cause of the problem. The director believes that the public lacks general awareness of "quality" movies and their production company surely delivers one. Herein lies the error in the argument. On what basis is the director so confident that his company produces "quality movies"? How can he simply reason his failure to generate revenue to people's lack of awareness? If the questions above were to be answered, the director would need substantial proof and reasoning to prove the same which he fails to mention in his recommendation. Hence, the argument is significantly weakened.
Lastly, I would like to conclude by saying that we would require further evidence and reasoning from the director to support the recommendation made to increase the budget for advertising in order to gain more viewers.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1781 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.906 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.502 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 28 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.167 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.477 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.309 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.481 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, hence, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, thus, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1861.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 363.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.12672176309 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3649236973 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7679686256 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 185.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.509641873278 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 578.7 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.1941678802 57.8364921388 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.388888889 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.1666666667 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.05555555556 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238469907263 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0653937001393 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0573383602246 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139717546888 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0400288442826 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.