The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a listener-supported public radio station.
"For the past year, as part of an effort to broaden our supporter base, our Folk on the Air program has allocated less time to traditional American folk music and more time to Latino music and world music. In recent months, many long-term supporters of our station have written to complain about what they describe as the un-American bias of the program. In addition, the local newspaper has published a recent editorial critical to our shift in programming. Therefore, in order to forestall any further adverse publicity for the station and to avoid the loss of additional listener-supporters, we should discontinue our current emphasis on Latino and world music and restore the time devoted to traditional American folk music to its former level."
Respond by writing an essay in which you discuss the specific evidence you would need to judge the validity of the argument and explain how this evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memorandum provided, the author has reached the conclusion of discontinuing the emphasis on Latino and world music because of the complaints received from the long-term listeners and also because of an editorial in the local newspaper critical to their shift in programming. But the argument put forward by the author is specious and hence the conclusion that the author has arrived on based on the argument can prove to faulty. The following points will discuss the specific evidence that will be needed to judge the validity of the argument.
The first concern of the author is regarding the complaints from the many long-term supporters of the station about what they describe as an un-American bias of the program. But what the author fails to notice is that the complaints have been coming only in the recent months whereas the changes to broaden the supporter base were brought about a year ago. There is no evidence provided that the complaints are regarding the allocation of more time to the Latino and world music. The complaints could be about any other changes that have been made in some other program.
The author also mentions the editorial in a local newspaper that was critical to the shift in programming which proves to be a concern. But the author fails to mention the nature of the article and whether it was critical about the same program where more time has been allocated to the Latino and world music or about any other changes brought about on the radio channel. Apart from this, the author doesnt mention that the complaints from long-term supporters or the critical editorial were about more time being allocated to Latino and world music. They could very well be about something else that the long-term supporters are unhappy about.
Apart from this, the author has reached the conclusion as a solution to the problem of losing listener-supporters but the author has not provided with any evidence that suggests that the radio station has infact lost any listener-supporters. And even if the radio channel has lost a few listener-supporters, but it may have gained many more than it has lost, as it intended to, because of the changes made in the program of allocating more time to Latino and world music. In such a case, discontinuing the emphasis on Latino and world music may result in the radio channel losing more listeners.
Thus, the argument put forth by the author to justify the conclusion drawn is faulty. Without the proper evidence and proof the argument lacks vitality and this evidence is required to prove if the argument is cogent or not.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 441 350
No. of Characters: 2124 1500
No. of Different Words: 159 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.583 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.816 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.562 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.753 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.402 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.631 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 6, column 402, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...io channel. Apart from this, the author doesnt mention that the complaints from long-t...
^^^^^^
Line 10, column 124, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y. Without the proper evidence and proof the argument lacks vitality and this evi...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, may, regarding, so, thus, well, whereas, apart from
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2166.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 441.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 4.91156462585 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58257569496 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72538775999 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.383219954649 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 675.9 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.9664504261 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.375 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.5625 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14925567106 0.218282227539 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0565716696482 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0444401244231 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0846545438803 0.128457276422 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0501102399412 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.52 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 71.0 98.500998004 72% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.