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 author claims that there have been multiple complaints regarding the late-night news show which broadly focusses on national news. The statement mentions that local businesses have canceled their advertisement contract with the company. It is further claimed that the viewers have requested for more coverage on local news and weather details rather than national news. In order to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, the author claims that the channel should devote more time to weather and local news than national news. It is highly likely that the author is right, but in order to strengthen his argument, he must provide certain evidence that clearly can lead to the conclusion that restoring the time-division between local and national news will lead to greater profits. A deeper understanding of the subject will help to reach any conclusion.
The statement here mentions that there have been several reports regarding complaints concerning the station's coverage of weather and local news. But the author has failed to provide any statistical numbers as evidence. The proportion of complaints to happy viewers can be very less and in such a case the station cannot resort back to its earlier schedule. In order to further strengthen the argument, it is necessary that the author provides the readers with evident numbers and examples to prove that the new time division is not being welcomed by the viewers.
The argument says that a number of local businesses have canceled their advertising contracts with the station. While it is a matter of great concern, it is necessary to look at a clearer picture. Is the cancellation of the contract result of higher pricing of the channel compared to its contemporaries? Have the businesses faced a great loss, which resulted in cutting down of expenses? Is it because the channel's reach has reduced in recent times? The author must mention all these facts to support his case.
To prove that the viewers of the late-night show are not happy with the changes in time division of local and national news only and not any other factor, it is important that the author talks about the quality of these shows. It is possible that the shows reported at the late hour, do not present content of good quality and devote more time to advertisements than actual news. The number of people watching these shows should also be mentioned to give an idea of the reach of the station. Growth or decline in the number of viewers of the station and its competitors needs to clearly mentioned to paint a better picture.
The author must provide answers to all the above questions to help readers reach any conclusion regarding the time-division between local and national news.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 454 350
No. of Characters: 2242 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.616 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.938 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.578 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.619 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.947 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.333 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 102, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...rts regarding complaints concerning the stations coverage of weather and local news. But...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, look, regarding, so, then, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2285.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 454.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03303964758 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61598047577 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61939470652 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.433920704846 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 697.5 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.2689763552 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.80952381 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.619047619 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.04761904762 5.70786347227 36% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
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: 0.284310715662 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0887308792044 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.084110924297 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168128082412 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0780217251718 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.95 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.