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 argument has many unwarranted assumptions which if proved wrong, could prove fatal regarding the time devoted to the weather and local news.
Firstly, there is no statistical evidence that specifies the number of complaints received. There might be a million people living in the country, out of which a mere thousand people complained. And in that, a majority of the people complained regarding the local and weather news. Concrete numbers for the number of complaints or moreover a rato of complaints to the total population should be given. It is blindly assumed that all the citizens are complaining and most of those complaints are about local and weather news. The viewers who did not complain might be really liking the extended timing for the national news. Upon reinstating the old timings could result in loss of these viewers.
Secondly, no strong reason is stated for the cancellation of the night shows. It is plausible that the number of viewers for these night shows has been decreasing incrementally and due to which they have decided to cancel their contract with the television station. If a relationship between the cancelling of the night show and reduction of time for the local and weather shows is provided, a reasonable conclusion can be drawn and based on that the decision of restoring the local or weather news channels could be discussed.
Finally, with very little affirmation, the television station has come to an ultimatum of restoring the time for local and weather channels. There is no proof that upon restoring the old things, there would be an increase in the number of viewers. Based on the situation, a year go, current decisions can not be made. It is possible that even after restoring the old timings there is no increment in the number of viewers. So, if it is proved that after restoring the timings there will be a rise in the number of viewers, the decision can be made. It can be done by providing results of surveys or interviewing regarding their decision.
To conclude, if no concrete evidence is provided. the argument as a whole can disprove the conclusion and result in losses in various ways.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 365 350
No. of Characters: 1749 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.371 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.792 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.659 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.766 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 53, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
... has many unwarranted assumptions which if proved wrong, could prove fatal regardi...
^^
Line 3, column 565, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
... The viewers who did not complain might be really liking the extended timing for the national ne...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 51, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...e, if no concrete evidence is provided. the argument as a whole can disprove the co...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, firstly, if, moreover, really, regarding, second, secondly, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1798.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 365.0 441.139720559 83% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92602739726 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37092360658 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72478942083 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.457534246575 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 547.2 705.55239521 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.6193996213 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.6315789474 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2105263158 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.10526315789 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.222025979156 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0727451638193 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0693277392412 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125016692433 0.128457276422 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0735476558585 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.31 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.