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.
It is said that the owners of WWAC believe that for increasing the number of their listeners, they have to decide to change the current rock-music to a news and talk format. This argument has some weaknesses and there are some questions and ambiguities that should be answered.
Firstly, the manager has mentioned in their station the number of listeners has declined and one way to improve this condition is to switch rock music format to a music format that more people are interested in. However, he has pointed that even by this way, the trend of decline has continued regarding to the decrease in local sales of recorded music. The question is that; how does the manager know about the music taste of their listeners? There is no acceptable survey with its results for this subject. Does the manager know about the exact number of people who are a fan rock music or those who are interested in other type of music? There no statistical figures about the number of fans. Have other stations the same problem with their listeners? It is possible that the station of WWAC has some weakness to attract more listeners, such as, lack of good sound quality while playing music or lack of playing updated music.
Secondly, he has mentioned that switching to other format of music cannot solve their problem because of the continuing decline in local sales of recorded music. How does he ensure the decline in local sales is only limited interest in music? One reason can be technology; it is possible that many people especially young ones prefer to listen to the music by their phone instead of buying CD. Many people like to download their favorite songs and have them in their mobiles to listen to them whenever and wherever they want. How has the manager recognized the fans of music are limited? He has failed to prove their words accurately.
He wants to make listeners from new residents. Does he know about the exact number of new residents? Whether or not their number is enough significant compared to the number of current population. Is the change of station format according to these new residents reasonable? How many retired people like to move the city of WWAC station in the year? How does he ensure that these new residents are not interested in music, especially the rock one? How does the manager know that the new residents are fans of a news and talk format? Yet, many old people tend to follow news through the newspapers, as they like a traditional way of getting news.
In conclusion, in my view, the manager has to make a decision after resolving he problem and ambiguities mentioned above.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2115 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.638 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.369 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.031 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.2 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.416 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.167 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 3 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 102, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Whether” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...bout the exact number of new residents? Whether or not their number is enough significa...
^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 102, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'Whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: Whether
...bout the exact number of new residents? Whether or not their number is enough significant comp...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 448, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...sted in music, especially the rock one? How does the manager know that the new resi...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, while, as to, in conclusion, such as, in my view
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2168.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 456.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.75438596491 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62105577807 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.44284858999 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.421052631579 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 685.8 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 44.746396503 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 86.72 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.24 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.4 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.260478462041 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0768826824294 0.0743258471296 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.060783053644 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142628038105 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0718322882785 0.0628817314937 114% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.1 14.3799401198 70% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.27 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.16 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => 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.