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
The business manager of the television station recommends that more time should be devoted to weather and local news in order to increase viewership and avoid losing advaertising revenues. He bases this recommendation on the fact that local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts with the station and that customers have been complaining about the coverage of weather and local news. He thus, bases his argument on a number of faulty assumptions and must provide the following pieces of evidence to substantiate his position:
First, did the complaints from the viewers start before the time devoted to weather and local news reduced? It may be that most of the customer complaints have always been about the weather and local news even before the time allocated to it was reduced. It may also be that most of these complaints are directed at the quality of local and weather news delivered, and not necessarily the length of time devoted to it. Hence, to strenghten his argument, the business manager must provide evidence as to whether the complaints about the news coverage actually started after the time devoted to it was reduced.
Also, will the increase in time allocated to the weather and local news actually attract more customers? This argument assumes that the viewers are actually attracted to the station because of its weather and local news, while this may not be the case in reality. It is also possible that while there have been complaints about the coverage of weather and local news, viewership of the station has not reduced, but actually increased. Therefore, to strengthen his position, the business manager has to collect evidence as to whether viewers have actually stopped watching the station because of the attenuation of the time spent on weather and local news.
If the business manager is able to provide these various pieces of evidence, it will become possible to evaluate if any of the issues faced by the station is due to the increased time devoted to the national news and less time devoted to weather and local news. It will also be possible to analyse the possible effectiveness of this recommendation.
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: 13 15
No. of Words: 358 350
No. of Characters: 1772 1500
No. of Different Words: 132 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.35 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.95 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 34 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.518 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.846 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.484 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.662 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.234 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 498, Rule ID: WHETHER[6]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "as to"?
Suggestion: whether
... business manager must provide evidence as to whether the complaints about the news coverage ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 520, Rule ID: WHETHER[6]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "as to"?
Suggestion: whether
...usiness manager has to collect evidence as to whether viewers have actually stopped watching ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, if, may, so, then, therefore, thus, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1811.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 358.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05865921788 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34981470047 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67455584392 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 139.0 204.123752495 68% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.388268156425 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 583.2 705.55239521 83% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
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: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 50.7901455884 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 150.916666667 119.503703932 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.8333333333 23.324526521 128% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.91666666667 5.70786347227 121% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.45056302821 0.218282227539 206% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.212381770533 0.0743258471296 286% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0935314867707 0.0701772020484 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.31674700035 0.128457276422 247% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0206728368223 0.0628817314937 33% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.3 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.66 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 98.500998004 66% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => 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.