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, it is stated that a greater budget should be allocated next year to reach the public through advertising as the reviews from the movie reviewers are better and the watching of people has decreased. The author thinks that the problem is not with the quality of their movie but it is the lack of awareness of the public. However, before this suggestion can be properly evaluated, three assumptions have to be analyzed.
First of all, how much have the viewers decreased from the past year? In other words, are they comparable? It is possible that viewers have decreased by just a small percentage - perhaps last year there was a movie which was most awaited by everyone and it was hyped and advertised a lot by the producer of the movie. Further, there is a possibility that there has been a new movie production company and everyone is excited to see what this new company has to offer the audience. If either of these scenarios is true, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, who are these movie reviewers? Are they bribed? The author has not mentioned any details about the reviewers about how accurate their reviews and how authentic they are. It is possible that they have been bribed by the company to give positive reviews to their produced movies to increase the publicity and to gain the attention of more audience. Further, there is a possibility that the movie reviewers are authentic and the reviews given are accurate but such good movies produced by the company are lesser than the bad movies produced by the production company. So the people watching are not so excited to even watch the movies which are really good because their expectations are lowered due to bad movie production. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, Is there any survey of the audience who have watched the movie, and what are their reviews on the same? The author has not mentioned anything about the reviews of the audience who have watched the movies which is the most logical and considerate thing to do before investing money in public advertising. It is possible that the audience has hated the movie and reviewers have liked it. Perhaps the audience is not interested in watching more of the content provided by the production company.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance of unwanted assumptions. If the author is able to offer more evidence (perhaps in form of a systematic research study) for the above situations, then it is possible to fully evaluate the viability of the recommendation to invest money on public advertising.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 458 350
No. of Characters: 2171 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.626 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.74 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.571 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.81 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.927 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.499 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.055 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, really, second, secondly, so, then, as to, in conclusion, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 38.0 19.6327345309 194% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 12.9520958084 15% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2225.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 458.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85807860262 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62611441266 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65351606682 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.423580786026 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 719.1 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.5729868618 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.952380952 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8095238095 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.71428571429 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.17717088264 0.218282227539 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0544783651206 0.0743258471296 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0536410927813 0.0701772020484 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0973526505271 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.05751369673 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.57 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.