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 above prompt discusses about the receded audience who listen to the radio and the ways in which this situation can be reversed. The whole claim is based on numerous assumptions, and the reasons stated for the plummet in the number of listeners are flimsy and circumstantial.
Firstly, the WWAC has suggested a change from its rock music format to accrue the listeners count. This suggestion may or may not work. There is no hard proof that the decline is because of the rock music, and it cannot be guaranteed that the situation will be reversed by changing the rock music format.
Secondly, the author has said the population in that area has augmented, and yet the listeners count is low. In this case, maybe people have switched to other modes of music, as today we have tons of devices from which we can listen to music, like ipods, phones, laptops, etc. In today’s world, we have advanced technology where, people can listen to any kind of music according to their moods, or discover new music genres, and listen to music with their friends even when they are in different places. The recorded system of music does not have any of these features. For example, the app Spotify, which can be downloaded in any mobile phones, offers all the above mentioned features and is one of the top music apps that is being downloaded by people all around the world as we speak. Although the customer has to pay a certain amount to enjoy these attributes, the prices would be less when compared to recorded systems with limited features. People share their love for music through this app. Additionally, the radio systems and recorded music is obsolete and cumbersome to handle as well, which is why people prefer other devices to listen to music. Even if they did switch to a music format tailored to the listener’s tastes, it is one of the many features provided by modern music devices. And this switch cannot affirm the increase in listeners.
Furthermore, according to the author there is a decline in the local sales of recorded music, and that suggests the defecit interest in music, which is a fallacy. There are multiple ways to measure the interest of the listeners, the local sales of recorded music is not the only way. For example, What if a person is zealous about music, but does not listen to it through recorded music? What if this person listens to music through her phone? Hence, the local sales cannot be the only determining factor of appraisement of interest.
In conclusion, this prompt is not infallible, and is based on numerous assumptions. To take a count of the people who have a predilection for music, surveys could be conducted on how many people listen to music, what kind of music and the mode by which they listen to music. This would be a good start, but to get more accurate numbers a more comprehensive research needs to be conducted.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 502 350
No. of Characters: 2305 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.733 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.592 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.389 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.496 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.359 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.102 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, as to, for example, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2379.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.7390438247 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51731752263 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440239043825 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 742.5 705.55239521 105% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 10.0 1.67365269461 597% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.1457895217 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.434782609 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8260869565 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.21739130435 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.203703319182 0.218282227539 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0675941717743 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.073302296357 0.0701772020484 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.131868341201 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0818378524674 0.0628817314937 130% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.8 14.3799401198 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.21 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.