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 author states that in order to ameliorate the decline in listener numbers, WWAC should change to a news and talk format. However, he fails to provide some important information to substantiate his claim.
Firstly, it is mentioned in the memo that the decrease in audience is because the new residents don't like WWAC's rock-music format. Yet, the author doesn't show any evidence that the most important factor is because of the taste. There are also many different factors that could make people don't want to listen to a certain radio station. For example, it is likely that WWAC has most of their programs at midnight while most of the new residents are people after retirement and tend to go to sleep earlier than normal people. Therefore, no matter how the radio station changes its format, it is not going to have significant improvement on increasing listeners. Another example could be that the they don't like the host's tone, leading them not to listen to WWAC.
Secondly, the author says that those new residents have limited interest in music by showing the fact that there is a decline in sales of recorded music. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that people who love music would definitely buy CDs. Since most of the music can be searched on the Internet now, stream music has became the major source for people to enjoy music. Therefore, the sales in recorded music may not imply their ignorance of music. For example, it might be possible that many of the new residents love classical music and due to the fact that most of the stream music applications such as Youtube music mainly provide pop songs, they are really interested in some radio programs that play those classical music.
Also, the manager claims that they should change to a news and talk format, which starts to attract people's attention recently. However, no evidence is provided to justify that there is no other competitor on this topic. Since the trend should be saw by many managers of different radio station, it is quite conceivable that many of them would want to increase their profit by switching to this format. For example, if there are 3,000 listeners who want news and talks on the radios, and there are three different radio stations provide such a topic. Therefore, every radio station has 1,000 audience in average. On the other hand, there are 1,500 listeners who want to listen to rock music on radios, and only WWAC has such a service. It might be possible that after changing to news and talk format, the number of listeners could drop further.
The author claims that WWAC should change their format to stop the decline in listener numbers. Yet, in order to justify his argument, he should provide more information.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 471 350
No. of Characters: 2204 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.659 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.679 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.333 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.409 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.483 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.528 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 97, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...n audience is because the new residents dont like WWACs rock-music format. Yet, the ...
^^^^
Line 3, column 148, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...WACs rock-music format. Yet, the author doesnt show any evidence that the most importa...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 244, Rule ID: NUMEROUS_DIFFERENT[1]
Message: Use simply 'many'.
Suggestion: many
...is because of the taste. There are also many different factors that could make people dont wan...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 290, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ifferent factors that could make people dont want to listen to a certain radio stati...
^^^^
Line 3, column 691, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'they'?
Suggestion: the; they
...isteners. Another example could be that the they dont like the hosts tone, leading them ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 700, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... Another example could be that the they dont like the hosts tone, leading them not t...
^^^^
Line 5, column 321, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'become'.
Suggestion: become
...d on the Internet now, stream music has became the major source for people to enjoy mu...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 731, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ograms that play those classical music. Also, the manager claims that they shoul...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, may, nevertheless, really, second, secondly, so, therefore, while, for example, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2265.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 467.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85010706638 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64867537961 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.39832326372 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 204.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.436830835118 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 700.2 705.55239521 99% => 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: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.0754188695 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.857142857 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2380952381 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.71428571429 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.239968423371 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0817712054262 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0603936697227 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144028888377 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.02116717742 0.0628817314937 34% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.15 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.4 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 98.500998004 80% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.