'The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.
“Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station’s coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The business manager of the television station argues that in order to increase ratings and avoid losing advertising clients, the station should restore the time allocated to weather and local news to its initial level. He or she supports the claim with facts such as the complaints received from viewers concerning the weather and local news coverage, and the decrease in advertising contracts with local businesses. While at first sight the argument seems cogent, it is fallacious, and not enough evidence is provided for the final claim to be convincing.
Firstly, the memorandum evokes the complaints received by the station, and how they have been mostly targeted at the station's coverage of weather and local news. However, we do not know whether these complaints were about the limited time the station devoted to these type of reports or about the quality of the reports themselves. If the latter applies, then restoring the time frame of the weather and local news would not help increase the number of viewers. Moreover, there is no evidence that in any of these cases the television station would attract more viewers, more specifically new ones.
Secondly, there is no stated reason for the cancelation of advertising contracts by local businesses. Therefore, it cannot be asserted that the cancellations would stop given a restore of the time devoted to weather and local news. For example, if the local economy is collapsing, local businesses could simply not afford advertising their products on television. Another example could be that certain local businesses could have found that their target audience does not follow this certain television station, and it would rather concentrate their advertisement fund on more relevant channels.
To bolster his or her argument, the business manager could provide more compelling evidence, supported by statistics and research. If we were to be provided with the percentage of people who complained about the restricted time devoted to weather and local news, or with the reasons behind the termination of the advertising contracts, the argument could convince us.
While the logic of the memorandum appears to be sound, the manager should strengthen his or her arguments by use of specific facts, numbers, and proof of research. Until then, readers shall consider the argument unconvincing and untrustworthy.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 15 15
No. of Words: 376 350
No. of Characters: 1952 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.403 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.191 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.691 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.067 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.567 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.607 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 118, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...w they have been mostly targeted at the stations coverage of weather and local news. How...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 176, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...that the cancellations would stop given a restore of the time devoted to weather and loca...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 323, Rule ID: AFFORD_VBG[1]
Message: This verb is used with infinitive: 'to advertise'.
Suggestion: to advertise
...ocal businesses could simply not afford advertising their products on television. Another e...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2013.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.35372340426 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78264071529 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.502659574468 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 613.8 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.95429778 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.2 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0666666667 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0 5.70786347227 123% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.299856149403 0.218282227539 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104552291199 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0879739059893 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162872549512 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0756716657694 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.12 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.