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 manager of the television station concludes that expanding coverage of local and weather news increases viewers as well as revenues to be collected from advertisers. He comes to this conclusion based on the complaints received from the subscribers and decrease in promotion contracts. The author's assertion might be true, but following three explanations must be substantiated in order to determine the credibility of the argument.
First of all, the author assumes that the complaints received from viewers are of the less time to local and weather news. It is possible that these negative responses from the customers be due to more unverified news. The weather forecast of the channel have had very low probability of getting its prediction correct which aggravated the people dependent on it while going outdoors. Also, the local news is so surfacial without any proper proofs and research which is reverted on the next news show, after another fact comes into light. These wavering and perfunctory process have caused people to lose their dependence on the news broadcasted by the channel. If any of these are true, then the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the manager assumes that decline in local advertising contracts be due to less time in native news. It might be that the overall effectiveness of the television channel have waned and the promotion is less likely to cover a larger target people.Further, the price and benifits from the advertisement are not homogeneous causing to decrease the interest of promoters. Also , it might be possible that local products have reached their target of being known to people and more marketing is not further required reducing the advertisement from the companies. If any of these scenarios have merit, then the conclusion of the argument is significantly weakened.
Finally, the author assumes that increase in local and weather news increases the number of its followers and consequently budgets collected from advertisement. Perhaps this might confine the scope of the news to rather smaller areas and the decrease in viewers from other areas be comaparatively higher then the increase in local supporters. Moreover, this new format might make the programs of the channel more tedious and uninteresting having negative impact on costumers and ultimately the promoters. If these cases are true, then the persuasiveness of the argument is hindered.
Thus, in conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. If the manager is able to provide evidence to these three expanations (perhaps based on systematic study approach), then the viability of the argument can be fully evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2241 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.176 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.86 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.031 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.334 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 294, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...nd decrease in promotion contracts. The authors assertion might be true, but following ...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 256, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Further
... likely to cover a larger target people.Further, the price and benifits from the advert...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 382, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...decrease the interest of promoters. Also , it might be possible that local product...
^^
Line 3, column 469, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e reached their target of being known to people and more marketing is not further...
^^
Line 4, column 298, Rule ID: COMPARISONS_THEN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'higher than'?
Suggestion: higher than
...wers from other areas be comaparatively higher then the increase in local supporters. Moreo...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, first, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, while, in conclusion, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2287.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 432.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29398148148 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55901411391 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96049041842 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479166666667 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 720.0 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
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: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.417423774 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.368421053 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7368421053 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.42105263158 5.70786347227 130% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.260868314893 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0898688975087 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.09269544951 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.149996834611 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.07559478709 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.7 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.0 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.