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
As mentioned by the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company, during the past year, even though movies do have great content, the viewership of movies has been decreasing. The director has come to this conclusion based on the fact that they have been receiving a greater percentage of positive reviews from movie reviewers and thus maintains that it is necessary to make the public aware of the content of the movies. However, the argument rests on unwarranted assumptions and needs to be evaluated further based on the following two questions:
Firstly, how credible are those movie reviewers? And what is their basis for rating the movies? In other words, are those movie reviewers experienced enough so as to consider their ratings the only basis for deciding the content of the movies? It might be possible that some of the movie reviewers have just started their careers in the industry and thus have little or no experience in judging a movie and its content. Therefore, their ratings won't match with what people generally like to see on the screens. And hence, that might be the reason behind the lower viewership for the movies. If the above scenario holds merit, then promoting the movies just on the basis of the movie reviewers might have no benefit. If the director of the company does thorough research into the types and credibility of the movie reviewers, then it will be possible to comment on the content of the movies.
Secondly, even if we assume that the movie reviews are to the point and have no two views, then the question that then arises is what are the exact numbers? How is the increase in the percentage of positive reviews calculated? It is possible that the number of movies released in previous years was lower than the number of movies released in the last year. Suppose there were 50 movies released the previous year and the positive reviews they got were for around 30 of them. But last year, let's say there were 75 movies released, and the positive reviews were 35. Thus, the number of movies with poor content was higher as compared to last year, and hence the stated argument holds no viability. Unless the director is able to put forward the exact data, it will not be possible to compare it to the previous year's data. Only exact statistics can help the director to know whether it is the poor content of the films that is pushing the audience away or the unawareness of the good ones.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is based on unwarranted assumptions. If the director is able to give the answers to the above questions, only then will it be possible to evaluate the viability of the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2171 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.639 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.391 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.267 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.339 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 158, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...hose movie reviewers experienced enough so as to consider their ratings the only basis f...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 271, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...f the movies? It might be possible that some of the movie reviewers have just started their...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 622, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[3]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
... of movies with poor content was higher as compared to last year, and hence the st...
^^
Line 3, column 811, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... possible to compare it to the previous years data. Only exact statistics can help th...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, as to, in conclusion, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2212.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 467.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.73661670236 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64867537961 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.4761674153 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.436830835118 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 691.2 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.5700536052 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.6 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.35 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.1 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.219203448749 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0685895855863 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0637964618055 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1384002175 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0817012770655 0.0628817314937 130% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.51 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.75 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.