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 in a memorandum argues that because their number of listeners has declined, the owner decided to change the format of their programs from rock-music to talk format programs. To reach to this decision, the owner has used some fallacious assumptions. In order to evaluate this decision, the owner should consider some concrete evidence.
First of all, the owner of WWAC radio station assumes that the new population consists of the retired people moved to their listener area is responsible for the decreasing rate of their listeners. Perhaps, other factors are responsible for this decrement and not the retired listeners. It’s plausible that other radio stations that have the same listener area as WWAC, have more attractive programs that have grabbed the audience’s attention, and consequently, the listener rate of WWAC had declined. Also, it’s possible that retired people are not willing to listen to any radio and they prefer to spend their time on reading books or watching TV. If either piece of evidence proves to be true, then the owner’s decision would be invalid.
Moreover, the owner of WWAC assumes that because of the continuing decrement of the local sales of music recorded, people have limited interest in music. The owner needs to know more accurate about the reason of the declined rate of the local sales of music. If this has other reason than people’s interest in music, then the decision made to change the program format of WWAC will be unsound. It’s possible that the economy has become dire and people cannot afford to buy recorded music, but they still are interested in listening music on the radio as a free platform. Therefor, WWAC should continue their musical format.
Finally, the listeners of the rock-music programs of WWAC are diminished, but they maybe prefer other kind of music to listen. For instance, pop music would attract them. Hence, changing the format of the program without considering other factors and evidence would be irrational. It’s likely that talk format programs that are increasingly popular, would not appealing for the listeners of WWAC. The owner should conduct a survey of residents in their listener area and decide based on this survey’s result. Furthermore, the owner should consider that entering to an area that is rapidly growing in popularity, such as talk format program would be equal to moving to a saturated market and despite the change, their listener rate would not increase.
All in all, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to lack of concrete evidence. The management of WWAC should consider other solid evidence and perhaps use a systematic research study to be able to evaluate their decision successfully.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2243 1500
No. of Different Words: 194 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.973 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.458 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.476 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.883 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.336 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 361, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'appeal'
Suggestion: appeal
...hat are increasingly popular, would not appealing for the listeners of WWAC. The owner sh...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 257, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...o evaluate their decision successfully.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, for instance, kind of, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2316.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 451.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13525498891 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60833598836 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.589948512 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.450110864745 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 723.6 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.8773449167 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.285714286 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4761904762 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.71428571429 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.305992591611 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0963103426432 0.0743258471296 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0859683884299 0.0701772020484 123% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.175372533176 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0760974393587 0.0628817314937 121% => 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: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => 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
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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.