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.
According to the reading passage, it argues that the television station's late-night program has to recover the time for weather and local news to their previous level in order to attract more viewers and maintain revenues from advertising. However, in order to evaluate the argument, more information has to be provided regarding the three following aspects.
Firstly, how many people are unsatisfied with the new distribution of time - more in national news and less in weather and local news. In general, those who are satisfied with the current situation do not make a certain action while those who have complaints are more likely to express their opinions. Perhaps the television station feels viewers want more time for weather forecasting and local news due to the complaints, it might not be the dominant view. If then, the argument is weakened.
Secondly, the reasons why local businesses canceled the contracts with the television station might be not related to local news time duration. Perhaps the local businesses are suffering from financial problems due to the nation wide crisis. If then, in order to save their money, they might have to cancel all the advertisements not only for the television station but also for others. In this situation, although the television station re-increases the time for local news, they will not re-contract with the station, and the argument cannot hold water.
Thirdly, there might be reasons why they decided to increase the time to national news. Perhaps a huge business has made a contraction with a much higher amount of money than the local businesses have been suggested. Or perhaps they receive more national subsidies as they convey new governmental policies for longer times. If then, the reduction of time to national news will result in losing their money, which is disadvantageous to the television station. Thus, if it is true, the argument is undermined.
To sum up, the argument, as it stands now, seems considerably unplausible due to its reliance on unrevealed evidence and information. If the business manager fails to provide proper evidence to prove those mentioned three cases are irrelevant to its case, it cannot be persuasive.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 357 350
No. of Characters: 1801 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.347 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.045 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.714 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 126 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.292 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.571 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
According to the reading passage, it arg...
^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...garding the three following aspects. Firstly, how many people are unsatisfied...
^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
.... If then, the argument is weakened. Secondly, the reasons why local business...
^^^^
Line 5, column 227, Rule ID: NATION_WIDE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'nationwide'?
Suggestion: nationwide
...ring from financial problems due to the nation wide crisis. If then, in order to save their...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... and the argument cannot hold water. Thirdly, there might be reasons why they...
^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...is true, the argument is undermined. To sum up, the argument, as it stands no...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, while, as to, in general, it is true, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 13.6137724551 29% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1858.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 357.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.20448179272 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34677393335 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78815168737 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.504201680672 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 576.9 705.55239521 82% => 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: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.7046331876 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.294117647 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.70588235294 5.70786347227 153% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.359124580469 0.218282227539 165% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119451835307 0.0743258471296 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.1108839439 0.0701772020484 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.199662448835 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0902515442479 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.