'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.
In the above argument, the business manager of a television station claims that the station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news coverage during their late-night news program. He states this because there have been complaints, most of them concerning about lack of coverage given to weather and local news as opposed to the national news and also because many local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts during this programme. However, this argument is flawed as the author fails to addresses several gaps as delineated below.
First, the author mentions that there have been complaints concerning the news coverage given to weather and local issues. However, he fails to mention about the ratio of the viewers complaining to the whole set of viewers. If this proportion is really meagre, there should be no need to alter their news coverage because the majority are still hooked up to what is being shown currently. A correct metric to adjudicate as to what should be shown is the increase or decrease in the viewers after changing coverage to national news and also as mentioned, the proportion of these viewers complaining.
Secondly, author tells that the local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts during this late-night program. However, the reason for them cancelling could be because it's a late-night program and they might have realised that their advertisements reach is far more during the regular television hours than at late night hours. It could also be possible that due to some economic conditions pertaining locally or nationally, their business is being impinged upon such as by a pandemic caused due to an infectious disease which lead them to cancel their advertisement contracts. It could also be possible that they would rather advertise their products at another television station because of better pricing policies and more viewership. Two situations happening at the same time, doesn't necessarily account for a cause and effect or a direct link. Instead, the author should focus more on collecting the data as to why the local businesses are cancelling their contracts rather than making assumptions.
Thus, the argument consists of several loopholes and information gaps which need to be taken into account before taking the decision of restoring back the coverage to local news and weather. The author needs to carefully circumspect the situation, on the basis of concrete facts and evidences rather than on intuitions based on flimsy assumptions before drawing out a conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 409 350
No. of Characters: 2124 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.497 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.193 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.663 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 160 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.267 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.226 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.128 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 521, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'address'.
Suggestion: address
...gument is flawed as the author fails to addresses several gaps as delineated below. Fi...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 182, Rule ID: IT_IS[17]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: it's; it is
...on for them cancelling could be because its a late-night program and they might hav...
^^^
Line 5, column 796, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... situations happening at the same time, doesnt necessarily account for a cause and eff...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, really, second, secondly, so, still, thus, as to, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2168.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.3137254902 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73290358678 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492647058824 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 665.1 705.55239521 94% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.9636035705 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.533333333 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.2 23.324526521 117% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.53333333333 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.284744909816 0.218282227539 130% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104159113696 0.0743258471296 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.116969702136 0.0701772020484 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.181938759828 0.128457276422 142% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.131399402438 0.0628817314937 209% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.2 14.3799401198 120% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.