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 television station's business manager's claims that, from their observations over the past year, they should restore the time given to weather and local news. Although this sounds convincing, the claim is based on a number of assumptions and patrtial evidence which must be studied and questioned in order to support the claim.
Firstly, the manager states that most of the complaints that they recieved were regarding the station's coverage of weather and local news. However, he does not specify numerically the number of complaints. 'most' can be 100 or even 1,000 complaints, out of 10,000 viewers. Additionally, he fails to specify what was the subject of complaint by these viewers. Though these viewers talk about weather and local news coverage, there is a high probability that are not satisfied by the type of news they cover or are questioning the veracity of the news. They could also be insatisfied by the time at which they deliver the news, and might ask for morning shows. All in all, it need not be that the complaints are aimed at the amount of time given to such news. If this is the case, then the company should work on the quality of news that they deliver.
Secondly, we don't know how recent these complaints were. Even if the complaints were about the time given to weather and local news, it could be that such news was in demand when there was a natural disaster or a local attack. At such times, there could be an increase in viewers who demanded more news about these issues. However, without such circumstances, there might not be a need to increase the time on this genre of news by the station. Therefore, the timeline of the complaints must be studied to render the evidence concrete.
Thirdly, the manager states that there has been a decrease in the advertising contracts by local business. This can be due to a number of reasons other than the ones that he specifies. It could be that as this is a late-night news program, they did not attract the concerned or desired viewers, and so, the businesses found this a waste of money. Or there could be a decrease in the number of local businesses due to a recession period, and so they don't have the funds for additional advertisment. The manager has not considered these possibilities, and it can seriously weaken his argument.
All in all, the manager’s suggestion, though based on some form of evidence, is based on faulty assumptions which must be analyzed carefully. This careful understanding will allow them to take a more calculated decision regarding the television station's future quality and quantity of news delivered.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2114 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.687 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.597 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 132 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.907 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.5 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 95, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...s that they recieved were regarding the stations coverage of weather and local news. How...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 207, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Most
...y numerically the number of complaints. most can be 100 or even 1,000 complaints, ou...
^^^^
Line 5, column 14, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...news that they deliver. Secondly, we dont know how recent these complaints were. ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 450, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... due to a recession period, and so they dont have the funds for additional advertism...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2178.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 449.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85077951002 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.60321845022 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69078634402 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.456570155902 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 663.3 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.8840456777 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.0 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.4090909091 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.365530324307 0.218282227539 167% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.110146447204 0.0743258471296 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100245653515 0.0701772020484 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206302579905 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0649038217469 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.6 14.3799401198 81% => 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: 10.85 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.9 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.