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 is needed to evaluate the
argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
This is a argument presented between two sides, one is the issue of financial loss incurred by the television station due to the increased time in the national news in the late night news program and the other is the viewer complaints of decreased covergare of weather and local news.
Financial loss or revenue loss can be partially explained by the fact that local businesses would only advertise if they were sure that their efforts were reaching the right sector of people i.e. consumers. They advertise for the people residing in the region who have the easiest access to their businesses. This is a win-win model as both the sides - Businessmen and television - station are benefitted from this. People can agrue that the advertisement can be shown during the national news segment but that would mean that the businessmen would be unsure if their efforts are finding the intended results. Late-night news program also is a time when majority of people complete their dinner and tune in to television to get updated about the news and the next day's weather, so they will surely watch the advertisements. A simple way to observe the revenue loss would be to check the finances of the previous year and year when the time devoted to the weather and local news was at its former level.
Viewer complaints arise from the fact that people like to the weather to expect the next day and they become mentally prepared. They are updated about their local news and don't have to go to any external sometimes unverified source for it.
Hence, in the view of aforementioned arguments, the suggestion is given to restore the weather and local news to its former level which would facilitate the revenue back into the television station and also reduce the complaints.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 10 15
No. of Words: 302 350
No. of Characters: 1440 1500
No. of Different Words: 151 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.169 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.768 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.507 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 93 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 72 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 32 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.127 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.405 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.405 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 9, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
This is a argument presented between two sides, o...
^
Line 3, column 172, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... are updated about their local news and dont have to go to any external sometimes un...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, hence, if, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 55.5748502994 65% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1461.0 2260.96107784 65% => OK
No of words: 301.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85382059801 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.16525528304 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56153239761 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 151.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.501661129568 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 459.0 705.55239521 65% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 10.0 19.7664670659 51% => 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: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 58.4564795382 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.1 119.503703932 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.1 23.324526521 129% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.4 5.70786347227 42% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.341624948535 0.218282227539 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.135091934387 0.0743258471296 182% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.117375473844 0.0701772020484 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217247026801 0.128457276422 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.122775591315 0.0628817314937 195% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.49 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 98.500998004 67% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.