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 from the TV station business manager, the author suggests that the time devoted to weather and local news should be restored to its initial levels. He arrives at this conclusion primarily due to the increased number of complaints received and cancellation of advertising contracts. However, in order to effectively evaluate this argument, three questions need to be answered.
Firstly, are we certain that local businesses have canceled their contracts with the TV station due to its lesser coverage of weather and local news? Maybe the advertising agents simply received budget cuts and did not have the means to pay for their commercials anymore. Further, it is possible that a competing television station provided the ad agency with a better deal, and so they chose to partner with the rivals instead. If either of these two situations has merit, the argument would be considerably weakened. Hence, it cannot be assumed that the devotion of extra time to national news is the primary cause of the canceled contracts.
Secondly, what was the reason for the viewers' complaints of the station's coverage of weather and local news? The author prematurely assumes that the audience is unhappy with the time spent on covering weather and local news. However, this may not be the case. Viewers may not be satisfied with the range of topics covered by the local news; they may want to hear more about politics and education as opposed to the, currently, in-depth coverage of local crime. Or perhaps residents have consistently been unprepared for thunderstorms due to inaccurate weather forecasts stating sunny, clear skies. If either of these scenarios were true, then the business manager's claim does not hold water.
Finally, if the TV station were to revert to its original airing pattern, is there any guarantee that the company will not continue to lose viewers and revenues? Over the course of a year, peoples' habits are susceptible to change. It is possible that people do not watch the TV anymore for news, but instead listen to podcasts to keep up with current events, or read weather forecasts on their iPhone. Had the author provided proof explicitly stating that viewers would be drawn back to their late-night program if they spent less time on national news, then perhaps this argument would be valid. However, since this information has not been provided, and if the two cases above were to be true, the author's argument lacks foundation.
In conclusion, the business manager of the television statement makes several unwarranted statements regarding the success (or lack thereof) of his station. If he were to answer the questions above, and perhaps, provide evidence (about viewers demands and the advertising company's requirements) in the form of a comprehensive study, then we may begin to evaluate the argument with more credibility.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2347 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.015 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.631 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 146 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.728 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.496 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 65, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...eason for the viewers complaints of the stations coverage of weather and local news? The...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 412, Rule ID: THE_PUNCT[1]
Message: Did you forget something after 'the'?
...ut politics and education as opposed to the, currently, in-depth coverage of local c...
^^^^
Line 7, column 701, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...he two cases above were to be true, the authors argument lacks foundation. In concl...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2408.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1452991453 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68671240585 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.521367521368 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 746.1 705.55239521 106% => 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: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.8305565022 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.666666667 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2857142857 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.09523809524 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.302546327491 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0879568461325 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0830061330816 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170901724545 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0645794393797 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
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: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.