'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.
The managing head of a Television Station is determined to increase the viewership of the news program that airs late in the night on his channel and also to get back his lost revenues through advertisements. The head of the department attributes this loss of audience and the decrease sponsorship to the decreased time that has been allotted to the local news and weather over the past year. However, before this recommendation can be properly analyzed, two questions must be answered.
Firstly, the head mentions 'many' complaints. Are all those complaints from different people or only a few people are repeatedly complaining? The answer to this is mandatory to solve the problem that the company is facing. If the action of increasing the time slot for local news is taken, keeping in mind the very few people who complained, again and again, The company might lose a large audience who are interesting in the national news that this channel telecasts.
Secondly, what is the exact reason for the advertisers to cancel their contract with the company? The reason may be the increased price for each advertisement on that channel. And one more reason could be the decreased rates for advertising in the competitor's channel. If the sponsors are looking out for a relatively lower price, giving discounts to them as a part of any offer would help the company regain the lost deals.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is flawed due to a lack of proper pieces of evidence. If the managing director is able to answer the above-mentioned questions with proper reasoning, then the viability of decreasing the time allotted to national news and increasing the same for local news can be properly evaluated.
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: 13 15
No. of Words: 288 350
No. of Characters: 1398 1500
No. of Different Words: 157 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.12 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.854 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.773 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 94 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 75 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.154 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.065 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 407, Rule ID: BE_INTEREST_IN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'interested'?
Suggestion: interested
...any might lose a large audience who are interesting in the national news that this channel ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 426, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...help the company regain the lost deals. In conclusion, the argument as it stands...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 55.5748502994 65% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1432.0 2260.96107784 63% => OK
No of words: 288.0 441.139720559 65% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.97222222222 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11953428781 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86053796848 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.548611111111 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 444.6 705.55239521 63% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 62.9841719574 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.153846154 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1538461538 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.07692307692 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.27730293571 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.078823111893 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.100148501072 0.0701772020484 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168812579289 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103862521935 0.0628817314937 165% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 98.500998004 70% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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
---------------------
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.