Essay topics:
'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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The prompt states that the business manager of a television station has devoted increased time to national news as compared to local and weather news which, supposedly has led to an increase in the complaints received from viewers. This has also led them to lose out on advertising contracts. To avoid losing further revenue and to attract more viewers the manager suggests restoring the time devoted to local and weather news to its former level. The manager's conclusion is based on some unwarranted assumptions which, if turn out to be wrong would lead to the weakening of the argument.
First of all, there is no statistical evidence provided that gives information as to how many viewers watch the television station. It is assumed that this is a significant number and the complaints received are also a significant number. It might be possible that the television station does not have a significant number of viewers which would mean that the television station would not have a significant decrease in viewers. If information is provided as to how many viewers the television station has, then it would be possible to conclude whether the decrease in the number of viewers would lead to a significant loss.
Second of all, it is assumed that the local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts with the television station since they have allotted less advertising time to them during the late-night news program. However, it might be possible that the television station has increased its advertising rates which is not affordable to the local businesses which led to them cancelling the advertising contracts. It also might be possible that the local businesses demanded an advertising time during the day as well for the same rates which the advertising agency did not agree and it led to the local businesses cancelling their advertising contracts with the television station. If information is provided about the advertising rates of the television station or whether the local businesses wanted a change in the advertising time then it would weaken the argument.
Thirdly, the business manager assumes that by reverting back to their old schedule they would be able to gain more viewers and advertising contracts. However, there is no information provided if there is another television station in the area or whether the viewers prefer watching the news on the Internet or the local businesses have turned to the internet for advertising. It might be possible that the television station is in a market with fierce competition and other major television stations. It also might be possible that the viewers and local businesses have turned to the Internet for local news and weather forecasts and advertising since it might be a cheaper alternative. If this information provided in the form of a survey which provides information about the competition faced by the television station and the preferences of the viewers and advertising agencies then it would weaken the argument.
The business manager has arrived at a conclusion that is based on unwarranted assumptions which if proved wrong with the help of statistical evidence and surveys would weaken the argument. In order to strengthen the argument, information has to be provided on the number of viewers the television station had before, whether there are other major news networks in the area and about the viewer's preferences.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 554 350
No. of Characters: 2829 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.852 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.106 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.854 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 176 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 124 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 81 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.158 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.842 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.416 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.625 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.199 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 453, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...d weather news to its former level. The managers conclusion is based on some unwarranted...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 97, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
... based on unwarranted assumptions which if proved wrong with the help of statistic...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, second, so, then, third, thirdly, well, as to, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 29.0 16.3942115768 177% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2874.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 554.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18772563177 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85151570047 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89423983507 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.310469314079 0.468620217663 66% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 903.6 705.55239521 128% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 49.6051444924 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 151.263157895 119.503703932 127% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.1578947368 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47368421053 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.264443362191 0.218282227539 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105989944807 0.0743258471296 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100957917044 0.0701772020484 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173014669674 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.104288157315 0.0628817314937 166% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.6 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 13.0 7.1628742515 181% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.41 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.47 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.