The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station.
"To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth in our listening area, but that growth has resulted mainly from people moving here after their retirement. We must make listeners of these new residents. We could switch to a music format tailored to their tastes, but a continuing decline in local sales of recorded music suggests limited interest in music. Instead we should change to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The manager of WWAC radio station claims that they should change the current rock-music format to news and talk format, and suggests several reasons that seem to uphold the author's claim. However, the memorandum is rife with holes and assumptions, which need to be eliminated in order for the author to maintain his/her claim with clear warrant. Such flaws will be discussed with further details below.
First of all, the manager reasons that the decline in listeners occurred even though the population grew. He/she also assumes that the main cause of the population growth, people who retired, must not enjoy rock-music format. For the population growth, there is a possibility that the population actually decreased but is simply not exposed on the numerical amounts. Maybe the teenagers who were the main listeners of the radio became college students and had to move to other areas. Such alteration would not have altered the total population, which might have made it seem as if the population grew than before. Moreover, people who retired may actually enjoy rock-music but does not favor listening to radios. Maybe they spend most of their time watching television shows because it is visually more satisfying than radios. They could actually be viewing rock-music festivals on televisions, which indicates that they actually favor rock-music. The author should not make a haste assumption that people who are seniors must not favor rock-music.
Furthermore, the author would have to clarify how much the population grew. If only two to three people increased than before among millions of residents, then the amount would be negligible enough. He/she needs to clarify for how long the decline has occurred despite an increase in the population. If it has only been a month, then maybe majority of the residents went on a vacation and did not have enough time to listen to the radio.
Last but not least, the manager asseverates that the public must have limited interest in music because the local sales of recorded music declined. However, as the technology constantly advances, there is a high possibility that people moved on to online music platforms instead of going through a cumbersome process of purchasing records. Maybe, people are listening to much more diverse music than before, due to easy access, while having to purchase records forestall them in trying different types of music. This certainly does not indicate that people have a limited taste in music. Moreover, if this is the case, then the author claiming that the radio station should change to news and talk format would not be a germane solution. He/she would have to expand their business in providing radio programs online.
To sum up, even though the manager's claim does seems plausible, through thorough investigation and reading the memorandum from various points of view, it is confirmed that the author's claim is clearly unwarranted. In order for the author do uphold his claim, he/she would have to eliminate the flaws of making haste assumptions, providing lack of clear and substantial information, and lack of thorough investigation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 513 350
No. of Characters: 2564 1500
No. of Different Words: 241 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.759 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.998 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.523 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.375 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.757 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.305 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.305 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 1006, Rule ID: WHO_NOUN[1]
Message: A noun should not follow "who". Try changing to a verb or maybe to 'who is a are'.
Suggestion: who is a are
...not make a haste assumption that people who are seniors must not favor rock-music. Fur...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 368, Rule ID: TO_TOO[2]
Message: Did you mean 'too'?
Suggestion: too
...ng records. Maybe, people are listening to much more diverse music than before, du...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, while, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2625.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 508.0 441.139720559 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16732283465 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74751043592 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60122954731 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492125984252 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 805.5 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.2472010835 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.375 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1666666667 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.54166666667 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.262481557616 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0721863792932 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0542359320581 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.129300326247 0.128457276422 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0471745513927 0.0628817314937 75% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => 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: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.