"Argument Topic: "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.
In the memo, the author concluded that Super Screen should allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising. The author arrived at this conclusion based on the premise that there is a lack of public awareness that movies of good quality are available. This argument is logically flawed and therefore to properly evaluate this argument, three questions need to be answered.
Firstly, what type of recent report is the author talking about? The author of the argument mentioned that the argument is based on a recent report, how recent is the report? It is possible that the report was compiled before a higher percentage of the overall viewers attended the Super Screen-produced movies and therefore the report is not accurate. It is also possible that there was a calculation or a statistical error during the analysis of the data used to compile the report. If any of these scenarios are true, then the argument does not hold water and thus is logically flawed.
Secondly, how few were the people who attended Super Screen-produced movies in the past year? The author mentioned that according to the recent report, during the past year fewer people attended the movie produced by Super Screen. He mentioned the term "fewer" which does not include any number. This pertains to ambiguity in the data mentioned. It is possible that lesser number of movies were released by Super Screen last year than in other years. It is also possible that the number of people that saw the movies last year was actually more than in previous years but the author maybe based his assumption on a larger sample area. If any of these scenarios are true, the the argument does not hold water.
Thirdly, how exactly did the positive reviews increase? The author mentioned that the positive reviews for the movies increased and in the very next line, he is concluding that the content of movies are not reaching people. The conclusion and the premise on which it is based is paradoxical. If there is an increase in the number of reviews, then it directly means that more people saw the movies.
In conclusion, the assumptions on which the argument is based are unwarranted and he conclusion is thus logically flawed. If responses can be provided to the questions asked with accompanying accurate and concise statistical data that has been properly analysed, then the argument can be logically and properly evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 411 350
No. of Characters: 1987 1500
No. of Different Words: 162 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.503 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.835 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.55 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.202 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 520, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e that the number of people that saw the movies last year was actually more than ...
^^
Line 5, column 683, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...ea. If any of these scenarios are true, the the argument does not hold water. Thirdl...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 683, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...ea. If any of these scenarios are true, the the argument does not hold water. Thirdl...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 192, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ne, he is concluding that the content of movies are not reaching people. The conc...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, firstly, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, in conclusion, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2049.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 411.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.98540145985 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50256981431 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69035511926 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 175.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.425790754258 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 650.7 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.7836406737 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.5714285714 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5714285714 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.42857142857 5.70786347227 113% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.284823459128 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0926107814353 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.119759505524 0.0701772020484 171% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144537067697 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.106995378826 0.0628817314937 170% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.07 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.