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.
According to the passage, the business manager of a TV station concluded that in order to attract more viewers to the program and avoid losing advertising revenues, they should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. The author has come to this conclusion based on the complaints of the viewers and the canceling of advertising contracts. However, the conclusion is based on several unfounded assumptions and we need more evidence to fully evaluate the argument.
First of all, the author mentions the complaints of the viewers but did not provide any information about the statistics. It is possible that only a small percentage of viewers make a complaint and from these few numbers most of the complaints were about whether and local news coverage. Moreover, it is possible that the viewers' complaints were about the quality of programs, not the time devoted to such programs. Maybe there has been a recent change in the cast of the local news program or wrong prediction in whether news had increased and viewers are concerned with these issues, not the time. So, we need more evidence about the main reason for the complaints and the number of dissatisfied viewers.
Secondly, the author did not provide any information about the target group of viewers in the TV station and the age and gender of the main viewers. Also, he/she did not provide info about the people who complained. It is possible that the main viewers of the TV station are young people but most of the complaints were from old retired people. Or even it is possible that most of the viewers were ladies and all of the complaints were from males. So, we need more information about the viewers who complain and the viewers who are the target of the station. This information includes the age and gender of the viewers.
Finally, the author cites that local businesses have canceled their contracts and concluded that they should restore the time devoted to weather and local news. However, he/she did not say why local businesses canceled their contracts? It is possible that there are reasons that they canceled their contracts other than what he/she mentioned. It is possible that businesses find the price of advertising so high and want to adjust another contract. Or maybe they find other effective ways to advertise. For example, it is possible that they try to advertise on the internet and receive more positive feedback from this type of advertising. So, we should know why businesses canceled their contracts to fully evaluate the argument.
To sum it all, the argument was based on several unfounded assumptions that weakened the persuasiveness of the conclusion. we need more evidence to fully evaluate the argument from various aspects.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 22 15
No. of Words: 465 350
No. of Characters: 2247 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.644 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.832 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.556 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.136 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.759 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.591 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.252 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 410, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...hat most of the viewers were ladies and all of the complaints were from males. So, we need...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 124, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: We
...d the persuasiveness of the conclusion. we need more evidence to fully evaluate th...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, for example, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2305.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98917748918 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62935701263 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 176.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.380952380952 0.468620217663 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 711.9 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.8746800018 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.217391304 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0869565217 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.26086956522 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.19514349992 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0585584145906 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0796279094658 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.109039335207 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0623598198085 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.66 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.43 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.