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 concludes that implementing a change in its broadcasting format will lead to boost in number of listeners. He comes to this conclusion based on the nature of new residents in the listening area and the reduction in sales of recorded music. While this may be a valid argument, there are three pieces of evidence which will provide further evaluation on the credibility of the claim.
Firstly, there is a need of concrete proof to show that the residents have limited interest in music. According to the author, a reduction in sales implies that the people are no longer interested in music this however might not be true. For example, it is possible that this conclusion was drawn based on faulty data. The people involved in sales of local music may have made some alterations in the sales record. It is also possible that the residents made a switch in their method of listening to music. Perhaps, because of technological advancements, they made a switch from use of local records to streaming diverse kinds of music online. If there is evidence to prove that any of this is true, it means that the author’s claim is not logical and should be disregarded.
Secondly, there is a need for detailed information about the new residents in the listening area. The author assumes that the majority of the immigrants no longer work. This might not be the case. For example, it may be that there was no scientific approach carried out in determining the nature of work of the new residents and the author made his conclusions based on hearsays. Even if there is proof that the new residents are of a certain age which is considered as retirement age, another possibility could be that the people in this category are involved in some other kind of menial jobs and trades which still consumes much of their time and as such even a change in broadcasting content may not make much difference. If any of this is true, this weakens the author’s argument.
Lastly, there is need for proof that a change from music to a news and talk format will be successful. The author’s seems sure that making such a transition will guarantee a reversal in decline of number of listeners, this might be false. For example, it is possible that the station does not have the capacity to produce quality news and talks content, if the quality of production is low, this might not galvanize the interests of the listeners. Also, it is possible that the issue with the majority of the residents is not the content of the radio station, what if the residents lack access to radios? If any of the above stated examples is true, then the author’s argument is not credible and should not be taken seriously.
In conclusion, the manager of WWAC radio station concludes that a change in its broadcasting format will reverse a decline in the number of listeners. However, as it stands now, there are many holes in the author’s argument which makes it implausible, before further considerations can be made, the author must provide three pieces of evidence as stated above
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 535 350
No. of Characters: 2484 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.809 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.643 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.57 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.261 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.9 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.739 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.312 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.053 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ree pieces of evidence as stated above
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, while, for example, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2552.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 535.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77009345794 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80937282943 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67802918868 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.398130841121 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 810.0 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.4245177465 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.956521739 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2608695652 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4347826087 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.161436443728 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0563858882183 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0856106857101 0.0701772020484 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117865005657 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0667509459744 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 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: 10.68 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.