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.
The memorandum concludes that the television station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level so as to attract more viewers and avoid losing any further advertising revenues. This was concluded on the premise that since the late-night news program devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news, most of the complaints received were concerned with the coverage of weather and local news and local businesses cancelled their advertising contract with the station. However, this conclusion is logically unsound as it is based on assumptions that are not wholly supported.
First and foremost, the argument assumes that the complaints that are mostly about weather and local news coverage is due to the reduction in time devoted. However, no evidences such as the exact complains or figures were provided to bolster the argument. The complaints even before this time period could already be with regards to the coverage of weather and local news and hence did not show any significant changes after reduction in time devoted. Thus, more evidences should be provided, such as conducting a survey to ask for viewers preferences and to provide the exact complains that was received. Furthermore, the manager should also compare the amount of complains before and after the time reduction and should provide figures on the increase in complaints with regards to the weather and local news.
Next, the argument assumes a correlation between the reduction in weather and local news coverage to local businesses stopping their advertisements in the news. However, no evidences were providing to support this correlation. It was stated that the local business "just" cancelled their advertising contracts with the news station, which reduced the weather and local news coverage for one year. No evidences were also provided to indicate how many businesses advertises with the company and how many decided to cancel their contracts. This lack of evidences and large mis-match in timing may indicate that there are other factors in play. For example, some local businesses may feel that everyone knows about their products after a long period of advertisements and decides that there is no further need for advertising. Hence, the manager should provide more statistics on the advertising contracts to support the assumption made.
Furthermore, the argument fails to consider that their reduction in time may not necessarily reduce viewers and increasing the coverage may not necessarily attract more viewers to the program. As mentioned previously, the complaints with regards to the weather and local news could have always been the same level even before the changes. Furthermore, people who do not follow the news previously will also likely not be following it now. Thus, in order to ensure that the company can attract more viewers to the program, manager need to conduct surveys to understand the needs of the people who are currently not viewing the news and this will allow the television station to attract more viewers.
In conclusion, the argument made by the business manager can be bolstered, if evidences such as a survey conducted for both viewers and non-viewers regarding the complains and what they would prefer to see in the coverages and statistics on the local businesses that advertises with the television station to support the correlation. Without these evidences present, we should be wary about accepting the memorandum's conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not exactly. Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
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.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 561 350
No. of Characters: 2911 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.867 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.189 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.671 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 189 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 85 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.535 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.535 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 132, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...ther and local news to its former level so as to attract more viewers and avoid losing a...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 406, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'memorandums'' or 'memorandum's'?
Suggestion: memorandums'; memorandum's
..., we should be wary about accepting the memorandums conclusion.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, regarding, so, thus, as to, for example, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 26.0 11.1786427146 233% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2979.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 561.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 5.31016042781 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86676880123 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77225266397 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.393939393939 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 930.6 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.7823958204 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.857142857 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.7142857143 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.42857142857 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less 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: 0.403829222483 0.218282227539 185% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.128161303589 0.0743258471296 172% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.117859940694 0.0701772020484 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.248362332966 0.128457276422 193% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.125950895554 0.0628817314937 200% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.