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.
In the memorandum, the manager concludes that the late-night news programs should devote more time to weather and local news in order to attract more viewers and thus, avoid losing any further advertising revenues. However, the author's contention might ultimately prove valid, as it stands now, the argument rests on three unwarranted assumptions that significantly hinder its credibility.
First of all, the manager of television station presumes that the "most of the complaints" received concerning the station's coverage of local and weather news is significant. However, this might not be the case. Perhaps it is possible that only few complaints are received in total, say 5 and out of these 5 complaints only 3 are concerned with the station's converge. In addition, it might be true that number of people watching late-night news are only small percent of local population.
Secondly, the author assumes that the major revenue of the television station is generated through the advertisements from local businesses. However, this might not be true. Perhaps the advertisements from outside business companies might have increased. Additionally, the local businesses had advertised enough that people are getting bore
Finally, the author assumes that if the channel devotes more time to weather and local news then more viewers will be attracted. However, this might not be a valid assumption. For instance, it is possible that the other television station is showing the weather and local news at late night and thus, majority of local citizens are already used to watched this particular station. Moreover, it is could be possible that since the last year the local citizens are more concerned with their eye problems resulting from watching television for longer and thus, reduced watching television. This might have increased the demand of local newspapers and hence, more people are shifting from television to the newspaper.
To conclude, although the central claim of manager might hold water, indicating that the weather and local news could attract more viewers, but the author needs to consider the above three assumptions if he hope to bolster its persuasiveness.
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 343 350
No. of Characters: 1798 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.304 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.242 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.716 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.438 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.216 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.576 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 232, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ther advertising revenues. However, the authors contention might ultimately prove valid...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 126, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...omplaints' received concerning the stations coverage of local and weather news is s...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 341, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ised enough that people are getting bore Finally, the author assumes that if the ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 395, Rule ID: IS_SHOULD[1]
Message: Did you mean 'it'?
Suggestion: it
...d this particular station. Moreover, it is could be possible that since the last y...
^^
Line 9, column 208, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'he' must be used with a third-person verb: 'hopes'.
Suggestion: hopes
...sider the above three assumptions if he hope to bolster its persuasiveness.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, hence, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, then, thus, for instance, in addition, 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: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1863.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 343.0 441.139720559 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.43148688047 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.30351707066 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86590552508 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.498542274052 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 569.7 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.897438996 57.8364921388 117% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.2 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8666666667 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.0 5.70786347227 140% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More 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: 0.353681234466 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.118744594429 0.0743258471296 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.092771523741 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.193742999222 0.128457276422 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0682244675986 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.51 12.5979740519 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.64 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.