'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 would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
It may be true that, to increase the revenues generated from advertising the news channel should restore its former structure of the show that devotes more time on weather and less time to local news, but the argument depends on many stated and understated assumptions that business manager of the television station should take into consideration.
First of all, whether the study conducted is reliable ? It might be possible people have stopped watching television late night and have started going to bed earlier than it is assumed to be. Here, changing the content of the show might not be helpful in attracting the advertisers. Though author has mentioned "most of the complaints received where concerned with station's coverage of weather and local news", but are complaints anywhere stating to stop the coverage of local news and increase the content of weather news? If yes, argument can gain some significance is taking a decision. Author should mention more about the concerns raised by the viewers.
Author says, local businesses that used to advertise with the stated late night have just canceled their advertising, but it might be possible that the advertisers canceled due to any other reason and not because of reduction in the viewership. It might be possible channel has raised the cost to advertise which is unaffordable for the local businesses now. Therefore, this claim should be carefully elaborated stating veracious facts and figures without which argument holds no water.
Have the local business owners, who used to advertise, claimed to come back to the same program to advertise, if the content of the news has been changed? It might be possible they have signed a contract with the other television channels for advertising and they may not return to this show even if the content has been changed. Business manager of the television station should conduct a meticulous study, considering all the facts and figures in order to come up with a decision. It is not guaranteed to have more audience if the content of the show has been changed. Viewers might get weather updates early in that day and that would make them stop watching the late night weather news, too. And the complaints raised might be regarding the high show length or maybe for inaccurate weather updates.
As evidenced, manager should address all the above stated assumptions and then come up with the accurate decision. Unless the above stated assumptions are acknowledged, it would be a bit difficult decision to take.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 415 350
No. of Characters: 2062 1500
No. of Different Words: 187 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.513 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.969 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.594 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.056 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.626 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.329 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, may, regarding, so, then, therefore, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2115.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09638554217 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68151058719 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472289156627 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 653.4 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 0.0 8.76447105788 0% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 72.9149047406 57.8364921388 126% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.5 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0555555556 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.61111111111 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.240662807825 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0654458061285 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0910184196033 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1466014086 0.128457276422 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.112624888889 0.0628817314937 179% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => 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.