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.
The memorandum from a business manager of a television station outlines a few possible changes that have taken place over the past year. There are a few evidences that have been presented by the business manager that later support his conclusion. The conclusion is that, in order to regain its lost viewers and revenue it would devote more airtime to weather and local news during late night programs. The above given plan of action seems to do the trick for the business manager when it is read for the first time, but a much closer look and a few alternate possibilities can cast a doubt on the prediction of the business manager on the outcome of this plan.
Firstly, the manager implicitly attributes the loss of revenue from advertisements to the reduced time devoted to weather and local news programs. The local businesses that used to advertise during the late-night news program might have found a cheaper alternative of the television station. This could mean that even if local news and weather programs are restored to its previous air-time. It would not have a positive impact on the revenue that will be generated from advertisements.
Secondly, there could be a possibility that the complaints received by the television station were due to the poor picture quality or inaudible sound that infuriates the customers that watch the television. The national news might be of interest to the customers of the television station, but poor broadcasting of the programs has led to the diminishing number of customers. This could mean that even if weather and local news is restored, the customers might not come watch it. The exact nature and the type of complaints received needs to be known so that the exact reason for customer churn is revealed.
Additionally, there is an alternative possibility for the reduction in revenues out of advertisements. There could be a possibility that the local businesses are not performing that great in terms of monetary aspects of business. This could prove the cancellation of advertising contracts.
The memorandum provided by the business manager consists of a plethora of loopholes and alternate possibilities. Hence, it is not at all certain if the suggestions provided by the business manager would prove to be fruitful for the television station.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 380 350
No. of Characters: 1893 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.415 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.848 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 125 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.851 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.588 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, if, look, second, secondly, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1936.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 380.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09473684211 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.41515443553 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92590398466 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.465789473684 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.7453386256 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.882352941 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3529411765 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.41176470588 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.377611514656 0.218282227539 173% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.121179151247 0.0743258471296 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0978379754298 0.0701772020484 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.199162509307 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.13456296975 0.0628817314937 214% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 98.500998004 80% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.