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 co

Essay topics:

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 is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In this passage, the author recommends to restore schedule devoted to weather and local news for avoiding further loss of advertising revenues. To support his/her claim, the author cites complaints from viewers about coverages of weather and local news. Furthermore, he refers to the cancellation of advertising contract from a local business. Quite convincing though such recommendation appears at first glance, a closer scrutiny reveals that this conclusion lacks crucial supports and therefore we should consider more evidence to help evaluate such recommendation.

To start off, we need evidence to verify if specific content of complaints about weather and local news. While it is shown that dissatisfactions seem to raise from declines of weather and local news, no evidence serves to rule out the probability that such complaints are relevant with the bad content provided by local news and weather, rather than their diminishing frequency. Thus, additional evidence gains great significance to determine how those complains look like. If new evidence shows that customers felt agitated about the mediocre quality of local news and weather, it is safe to claim that the plan to recovery the original schedule of local news and weather is groundless and his/her conclusion will be weakened. Otherwise, if new information discloses an opposite situation, his/her conclusion will be strengthened.

Furthermore, we need more evidence to ascertain why local business have cancelled the previous contract. First of all, while the impact of low frequency of local news and weather might be its root cause, a more accurate analysis of local business' financial status could lend great support to the author's statement. If this company is actually in limited budget for advertising and thus can't provide sufficient money to continue, the guess for less weather and local news is in great doubt and his/her conclusion will be rendered much less advisable. Second, we need to know whether their concern about station lies in advertising time or not. If it turns out that they want to just adjust advertisement's schedule time in situation and would further discuss with station for better advertisement time, we are unconvinced of the allege reason about less local news and weather.

Last but not least, despite the presence of all previous evidence, a more accurate evaluation of the author's recommendation requires further information. Specific evidence is needed to decide whether the recovery with local news and weather to previous level could further attract more viewers and avoid any more loss; that is to say, whether just back to the previous schedule could catch up with more viewers and bring about more revenues. If the answer is positive, his/her conclusion will be strengthened. On the contrary, if current audiences are really more finicky than ever before, or advertisement requirements from business have been changed drastically, we are reluctant to believe that the sole recovery to previous status would help. Perhaps, this station needs more investment to analyze the current needs from both audiences and relevant businesses.

In summary, the evidence cited by the author in the argument could not provide sufficiently conclusive information to make his/her conclusion compelling. Thus, we need more evidence to better evaluate such conclusion.

Votes
Average: 8.2 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 29, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'recommends restoring'.
Suggestion: recommends restoring
In this passage, the author recommends to restore schedule devoted to weather and local n...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 297, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... status could lend great support to the authors statement. If this company is actually ...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 387, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...limited budget for advertising and thus cant provide sufficient money to continue, t...
^^^^
Line 9, column 574, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... less advisable. Second, we need to know whether their concern about station lies...
^^
Line 9, column 825, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...vertisement time, we are unconvinced of the allege reason about less local news and weathe...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 102, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ence, a more accurate evaluation of the authors recommendation requires further informa...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 469, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ore revenues. If the answer is positive, his/her conclusion will be strengthened....
^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, if, look, really, second, so, then, therefore, thus, while, in summary, first of all, on the contrary, that is to say

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2859.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 524.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.45610687023 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7844588288 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87021568435 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477099236641 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 882.0 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.1975629535 57.8364921388 123% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.142857143 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.9523809524 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.2380952381 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.215709168959 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0733733327209 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.066497803351 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12606112315 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0849386830495 0.0628817314937 135% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.68 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.

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: 21 15
No. of Words: 530 350
No. of Characters: 2785 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.798 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.255 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.802 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 176 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.238 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.274 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.857 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.534 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.238 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5