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 business manager of a television station recommends that it is required to expand the coverage of weather and local news to attract more viewers to the news program and to avoid losing further advertising revenues. The manager reports the cases of complains from viewers concerned with their station's coverage of weather and local news and cancellation of advertising contracts of the local businesses to provide support for the recommendation. However, the argument is based on some unstated assumptions. Here three of them are presented.
First of all, the recommendation assumes that time required for weather and local news is less than the time for national news. But the question is how much less. Perhaps, time required for weather and local news is not too much less than the time budgeted for national news. The time budgeted for weather and local news can be comparable with the time budgeted for national news. These two times can be almost equal, may differ a little. The argument does not mention about the time duration of the two types of news. If this is proved to be unwarranted, then the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the argument assumes that less budgeted time for the weather and local news is responsible for the cancellation of the advertising contracts of the local businesses. However, this may not be the case. perhaps, the local businesses cancelled the contract for other reasons. It is possible that conflict between the manager of the television station has started. The argument fails to take account for this case and thus is seriously weakened.
Finally, the manager assumes that it is satisfactory to only increase the time budgeted for weather and local news to attract more viewers to their news program and avoid losing any further advertising revenues. this may not work as expected. perhaps, there are other reasons for viewer dissatisfaction. Perhaps, the news program is broadcasting only violent news which is terrifying young people a lot and for this reason, parents are not willing to see the news program. The argument fails to take account for this and if this assumption proves to be unwarranted, it will be seriously flawed.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands, is seriously flawed and if the stated three assumptions comes to be unwarranted, the argument will not hold water. They must be carefully analyzed before evaluating the argument.
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 397 350
No. of Characters: 1972 1500
No. of Different Words: 152 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.464 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.967 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.666 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.584 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 212, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Perhaps
...ses. However, this may not be the case. perhaps, the local businesses cancelled the con...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 213, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: This
...osing any further advertising revenues. this may not work as expected. perhaps, ther...
^^^^
Line 7, column 244, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Perhaps
...evenues. this may not work as expected. perhaps, there are other reasons for viewer dis...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2099.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 400.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.2475 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.472135955 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.19429080548 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.4075 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 638.1 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 64.8697400627 57.8364921388 112% => OK
Chars per sentence: 91.2608695652 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.3913043478 23.324526521 75% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.34782608696 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.354977231039 0.218282227539 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.116890474758 0.0743258471296 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.114064222342 0.0701772020484 163% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.210560511652 0.128457276422 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.115904586254 0.0628817314937 184% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.87 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.