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."
The business manager concludes that the radio station should discontinue their current emphasis Latino and world music and restore the time devoted to traditional American folk music to its former level. Stated in this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and ill-defined terminologies. Also, it fails to mention several key factors of basis of which this argument can be evaluated. The business manager reasons this conclusion by stating that it shall forestall any further adverse publicity for the station and avoid the loss of additional lister-supporters. Close scrutiny to the evidence reveals that the argument provides little credible support to the business manager's conclusion. Hence, the argument is incomplete or unsubstantiated.
First of all, the business manager readily assumes that the more time allocated to the Latino music and world music has led to a decrease in the listeners. This is merely an assumption with no solid ground. To illustrate this further, we can say that the number of people who enjoy such music may have started to listen the their air program. Therefore, the business manager should explicitly analyse and state that statistics after their shift of programming to convince the reader.
The argument notes that the radio station has been adversely publicized. This, again is a weak and unsupported claim as it fails to demonstrate the correlation between the entire general public who listens to this air program and a local newspaper editor. It might be the case, that the local newspaper editor does not enjoy the latino and world music but most of the audience seem to enjoy it. The opinion of the whole audience weighs more than the opinion of an editor. Hence, the business manager needs to be more clear for the reader to understand his argument.
Furthermore, it is stated that the long term supporters have compliant about the show being un-American bias. This argument in several critical respects, raises skeptical questions. How many complaints have been recieved? Is it more than the listeners gained? Do they want American music and world music to be allocated equal time> Unless these questions are answered, the argument shall lead the reader to have the impression that the business manager's conclusion is more of a wishful thinking rather than a substantive thinking.
In conclusion, we realize that the above argument is as impersuasive as it stands. To bolster the argument, the business manager should do a detailed analysis and reliable survey on the listeners gained and lost. Also, the amount of time which is needed to be allocated to the music should be found out. This shall provide a concrete evidence for the reader to support the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2249 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.065 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.67 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.092 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.417 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.476 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.055 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 587, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: Scrutiny
...e loss of additional lister-supporters. Close scrutiny to the evidence reveals that the argume...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 693, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...little credible support to the business managers conclusion. Hence, the argument is inco...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 321, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'their'?
Suggestion: the; their
...y such music may have started to listen the their air program. Therefore, the business ma...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 180, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
...rate the correlation between the entire general public who listens to this air program and a l...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 385, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d music but most of the audience seem to enjoy it. The opinion of the whole audie...
^^
Line 7, column 446, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...o have the impression that the business managers conclusion is more of a wishful thinkin...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, so, therefore, in conclusion, 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: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2305.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 444.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19144144144 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5903493882 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74554907604 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497747747748 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 725.4 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 55.0792358537 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.0416666667 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.70833333333 5.70786347227 65% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.193799361584 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0555959052844 0.0743258471296 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0442315582713 0.0701772020484 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118690320275 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0216997897883 0.0628817314937 35% => 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: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.