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.
this paragraph talks about how the manager of WWAC radio station wants to stress that a change of one kind of music genre to a different one isn't going to result in an increase in the audience, but rather states encourages the usage of a news-and-talk format. The manager has come to this conclusion based on the evidence that radio is increasingly popular in the area of use of the station and also due to the fact that as people have been moving into this area after retirement, these new residents are parochial and was narrow interest in music. However, before we move ahead with evaluating the argument, there are a three questions that need to be answered.
First of all, how do we know if the new residents are actually pedantic when it comes to the taste of music? do we have any census reports providing this, which was collected from the individuals themselves? Closure of several local stores that sold music seems to be one of the reasons why the head thinks that the localites don't have a broadmind with music. but the local stores might have shut down due to the paradigm shift in technology - the people might be interested in listening to songs on go through their phones instead of having to buy an extra piece of hardware. The members maybe tuning into other stations for listening to their predilected music which is not stated otherwise anywhere.
Secondly, how do we know if the news and talk shows will be accepted by the residents? The residents might be the kinds of people who are into reading newspapers and magazines rather than listening to radio and music, we do not know how well received the news and talk shows are with this community.
Lastly, have we witnessed any dip in the listeners in the other stations too? is the trend visible everywhere or is it polarized between current station and others? if the number of listeners that listen to other stations related to rock styles increased over the past few months, it just means that the community that has joined this area might be interested in music all together ,just not our station.
With the current information provided for evaluation, the argument seems to have its share of fallacies but if the manager could provide answers to the questions posed and also offer more points for evaluation, then it would make it conspicuous to evaluate the argument better to see if the paradigm shift of introducing news-and-talk format works.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 10 15
No. of Words: 424 350
No. of Characters: 1969 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.538 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.644 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.487 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 42.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 18.747 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.9 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.405 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.716 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.2 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
this paragraph talks about how the manager o...
^^^^
Line 1, column 142, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
... kind of music genre to a different one isnt going to result in an increase in the a...
^^^^
Line 3, column 110, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Do
...ic when it comes to the taste of music? do we have any census reports providing th...
^^
Line 3, column 327, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... why the head thinks that the localites dont have a broadmind with music. but the lo...
^^^^
Line 3, column 361, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: But
...lites dont have a broadmind with music. but the local stores might have shut down d...
^^^
Line 7, column 79, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Is
...he listeners in the other stations too? is the trend visible everywhere or is it p...
^^
Line 7, column 166, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...zed between current station and others? if the number of listeners that listen to ...
^^
Line 7, column 382, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...ight be interested in music all together ,just not our station. With the curre...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, well, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2013.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 422.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77014218009 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53239876712 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54746095366 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.526066350711 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 631.8 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 84.3232362001 57.8364921388 146% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.785714286 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.1428571429 23.324526521 129% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.78571428571 5.70786347227 136% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => 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: 0.182256028093 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0629652797216 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0379598483869 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0979402733954 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0427345452238 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.98 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 27.0 12.3882235529 218% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.