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 memorandum recommends the change in rock music format to news and talk format in order to resist the decline in listeners. To support his claim, he points out to certain evidences namely rise in population but decline in listeners, rising popularity of news and talk format, proportion of retired people is high among people moving to the town and declining interest in rock and music format. The manager’s chain of reasoning seems true at first sight, however it is based on evidences which have not been evaluated such as relationship between retiring people and popularity for news and talk format. Therefore, to better evaluate the argument and analyse its logical soundness, additional evidences are required that are foundational to the line of reasoning.
First of all, are existing listeners not interested in rock and music format? In other words, the manager has not provided any evidence on the preferences of its existing listeners or listeners who have changed their preferences, if any. Since he may find that decline in listener is not due to the change in preference but because of listeners’ movement to another town in search of jobs and employment and they are still enjoying the existing format with different radio station that is available in their new residence. Further, he may also find that listeners abstain from this format available on this radio station because of outpouring of sudden and undesirable advertisements that have started in the last 6 months and thus, listeners started to dislike this gap in their entertainment. Therefore, unless these evidences are collected, the claim cannot be supported by the manager.
Secondly, are these retired people like to listen news and talk format? In other words, the manager has failed to provide any evidence on the preferences of these retired people who have settled recently. Since, it may be the case that these people are willing to listen rock music, but intuition of this radio station mistakenly assumed their preference for news because of their age and maturity level. Further, he also ignored to refer to an evidence which may provide some direction on the popularity of news format among these old people. Since, he may find that the location where this radio station is such where people would like to settle in after retirement and relish this beautiful phase of life which has minimum family responsibility, thus, they may be inclined to listen to rock music to relive their younger days of life. Therefore, until these facts are collected on these parameters, the claim made by the manager is significantly weakened.
Finally, are there no competitors in this town? In other words, the manager has ignored the presence of other radio stations in the town and the offers made by them to lure listeners. Since, he may find that there are two or three new radio stations that have come up in this town 6 months before and because they are offering some financial incentives like prizes for some quiz on music or competition to host a show one day, the listeners of WWAC have switched to these new stations. Further, he may also find that increase in popularity of news is temporary among listeners because of sudden geo political events such as war, elections or other tragic events occurred lately and it would over soon, then listeners may need music to get some relief in these difficult times. Therefore, unless the recommendation is inclusive of these evidences, the argument does not hold merit.
Thus, while concluding, with the lack of comprehensive chain of reasoning, the recommendation as it stands now, is considerably flawed. If the manager is able to offer more evidences as covered under above paragraphs and perhaps in the form of research study covering the preference of existing listeners, preference of these old people, offerings the competitors, if any, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the claim.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 654 350
No. of Characters: 3223 1500
No. of Different Words: 265 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.057 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.928 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.635 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 223 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 122 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.727 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.741 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.955 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.322 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, while, such as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 26.0 11.1786427146 233% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 105.0 55.5748502994 189% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3314.0 2260.96107784 147% => OK
No of words: 654.0 441.139720559 148% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06727828746 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.05701727356 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75585735974 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 283.0 204.123752495 139% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432721712538 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1076.4 705.55239521 153% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 83.7055050176 57.8364921388 145% => OK
Chars per sentence: 150.636363636 119.503703932 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.7272727273 23.324526521 127% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.40909090909 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.205187223392 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0669550278576 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0573249347306 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116787091228 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0656319826459 0.0628817314937 104% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.3 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.72 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 128.0 98.500998004 130% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 20.0 11.9071856287 168% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.