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 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 canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs.' Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The writer of this memorandum recommends that if the TV channel devote more time to weather and local news, there will be more viewers and business partners, however, this conclusion cannot be accepted, in that it rests on some premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.
The first problem concerning this conclusion is that he did not mentioned the number of people who were complaining about lack of local news and weather. Maybe the number of people who are not agree with global news compared with total number of viewers are negligible. The business manager should listen to the bigger proportion of their viewers. If, for example, only 10 out of their 2000 viewers are complaining about the time devoted to global news, it is safe to assume that there are more people happy about the new way that the show runs.
Another problem with his conclusion is that he assumes that their business partners canceled their contract because they did not devote enough time to local news. However, there is no evidence that it is exactly because of their time devotion. As an example, maybe there are better platforms like social media that can have a profound impression on consumer and is less expensive, so it is better for companies to invest more money on social media other than paying TV channels to promote their product. So the manager should find out where those companies are now paying for adverts.
Additionally, late-night news might attract less viewers because its airing time is not suitable for viewers anymore, maybe ten years ago people used to stay up until midnight to watch news, but today, because of their demanding schedules they are not able to watch the late-night news.
There is another problem with his conclusion which is, he does not talk about their rivals like social media apps that can show you the news anytime you like. These apps has a irrefutable impact on number of people who watch news to understand what is going on in the world or their hometown. Hence the manager should run a survey to see how people nowadays watch or read news.
In the final analysis, the business manager recommends that it is better to restore the time devoted to weather and local news which, cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. The recommendation can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to, are all removed.
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: 428 350
No. of Characters: 2004 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.548 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.682 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.385 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 54 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.533 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.667 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.63 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.118 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 65, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'did' requires the base form of the verb: 'mention'
Suggestion: mention
...ning this conclusion is that he did not mentioned the number of people who were complaini...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 194, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'agreed'.
Suggestion: agreed
... Maybe the number of people who are not agree with global news compared with total nu...
^^^^^
Line 13, column 45, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun viewers is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...tionally, late-night news might attract less viewers because its airing time is not ...
^^^^
Line 17, column 171, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'have', 'haven'.
Suggestion: have; haven
...u the news anytime you like. These apps has a irrefutable impact on number of peopl...
^^^
Line 17, column 175, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...e news anytime you like. These apps has a irrefutable impact on number of people ...
^
Line 17, column 294, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...oing on in the world or their hometown. Hence the manager should run a survey to see ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, may, so, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2069.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 428.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 4.83411214953 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.548423998 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.45480926408 2.78398813304 88% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467289719626 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 639.9 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
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: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 78.0579841457 57.8364921388 135% => OK
Chars per sentence: 137.933333333 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.5333333333 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.46666666667 5.70786347227 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.271394124022 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0945220591295 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0650080703898 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154480282524 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0426930481602 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.52 48.3550499002 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.03 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.