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 the memo, the business manager concludes that to attract more viewers to the late-night news program and to avoid further loss of advertising revenues, time devoted to weather and local news should be restored to its former level. The manager arrived at this conclusion based on a history of the past years which shows that when more time was devoted to national news and less time to weather and local news, most of the complaints from the viewers were centred around the station's coverage of weather and local news. While this argument may be true, three specific pieces of evidence need to be provided and properly evaluated, to further ascertain the persuasiveness of the argument.
First, pieces of evidence to show that the complaints received from viewers were centred on increasing the time allotted for weather and local news broadcast, needs to be provided. Perhaps, most of the viewers were complaining of other aspects of the late-night news program and not the time allocation. Maybe the picture and sound quality of the broadcast has plummeted in recent times and has resulted in difficulty while watching the broadcast. It is also possible that the complaints from the viewers in the past years were due to the presentation style adopted by the television station. If the business manager cannot provide evidence to show that the complaints were concerning time allocation only, then his argument is intangible.
Second, the business manager must show that the reason for the cancellation of the advertisement contract by the local businesses was a result of the unbalanced time apportioning. Local businesses might have pulled out owing to an increase in advertisement charge and other additional charges imposed by the television station. Maybe the local businesses are no longer solvent enough to scope with the increased priced and hence decided to pull out. It might also be the case that newly-created government advertisement restriction on certain products, which forms the core-production of the local businesses, forcing them to cancel advertisement contracts with the television station. If the business manager can prove that either of the above scenarios is false and show that the cancellation of contracts was as a result of the "improper" time allocation then his argument will be more persuasive.
Lastly, even if the business manager can prove that complaints received from viewers were centred on increasing the time allotted for weather and local news broadcast, and also show that the reason for the cancellation of advertisement contract by local business is due to the unbalanced time apportioning, he still needs to provide shreds of evidence to demonstrates that restoring the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level will, in turn, attract more viewers to the late-night news program, as this may not be the case. Perhaps, in the present times, the majority of the viewers are more interesting in reports and happenings in the national scene and will therefore not subscribe to listening to local news. Maybe this national election has been scheduled for this month and the viewers will be interested in knowing the level of preparedness at the national electoral office. If it is the case that viewers will primarily be interested in national news during this period then the conclusion by the business manager is flawed and does not hold water.
In conclusion, while the conclusion made the business manager may be valid, the argument as it stands now is substantially weakened. Hence, further specific evidence needs to be provided by the business manager; maybe in terms of scientific surveys, to make the argument overly more persuasive.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 600 350
No. of Characters: 3056 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.949 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.093 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 217 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 189 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 78 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.384 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.567 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.155 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 477, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...rom the viewers were centred around the stations coverage of weather and local news. Whi...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 670, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...de evidence to show that the complaints were concerning time allocation only, then his argument...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 356, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'demonstrate'.
Suggestion: demonstrate
... needs to provide shreds of evidence to demonstrates that restoring the time devoted to weat...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, if, lastly, may, second, so, still, then, therefore, while, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 88.0 55.5748502994 158% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3129.0 2260.96107784 138% => OK
No of words: 600.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.215 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94923200384 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91332141493 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.383333333333 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 977.4 705.55239521 139% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 92.0497878048 57.8364921388 159% => OK
Chars per sentence: 164.684210526 119.503703932 138% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.5789473684 23.324526521 135% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.57894736842 5.70786347227 98% => 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 : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.45353623254 0.218282227539 208% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.154045640643 0.0743258471296 207% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.130309357357 0.0701772020484 186% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.26929448814 0.128457276422 210% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.145592195773 0.0628817314937 232% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.9 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.3550499002 83% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.53 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.31 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.0 12.3882235529 137% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.