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 discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The memorandum from television manager states that there has been a lot of complaints regarding the coverage of local and weather news and the station has lost some advertisers. The reasons for this, as stated by the manager is, less time devoted to local news and weather reports in their news programs. So, to lure more viewers and to avoid further losing of sponsors the manager suggests to increase the coverage for local and weather news in all news programs. The argument seems valid at cursory glance, however, a deeper analysis of the argument and the facts provided to support the argument seem unwarranted and need further scrutiny.
Author should provide evidence to prove that, the television station has been devoting a lot of time for local and weather news since many years except for the last year. This information helps to support the assumption made by the author that, the channel had devoted less time local and weather news only in the past year and because of this complaints have increased. What if the channel has always devoted less time to local news and weather news compared to other news and this years the coverage has become so less that, viewers started complaining? This this scenario proves the author's assumption wrong.
The main fact that attracts advertisers is the viewership of a program. If more people watch a program, the advertisers tend to give preference to that program over other programs which have less viewership. For instance, the late night program broadcast by the television station is of pathetic quality and has failed to gain viewership. In such scenario it is evident that the advertisers prefer late night programs in other stations, which have more viewership compared to this program. Also, there could be many other reasons why a program is getting less advertisers along with the viewership criterion. What if the business is moving to another area and there is no use by advertising in this area? What if the business has started making good profit and they stop advertising? So, author should provide evidence that overcomes all these possibilities and proves that the coverage of local news is the only reason for cancelling of advertisements.
The author should provide evidence to prove that after increasing the coverage for local and weather news, the station will attract more viewers and advertisers for sure. What if the news is telecast in working hours in which people prefer to work rather than watch news? What if the content of news fails to attract viewers even if the news is telecast at popular time? These possibilities reduce the chances of success of the author's suggestion.
To conclude, the author fails to present a cogent argument in front of the audience. If, the author had provided some substantive evidence to back up the information stated(data collected by survey of viewers and the information about advertisers), the argument would have become more tenable. So, the television station authority should do thorough research to find out reason behind decreasing number of viewers and advertisers before implementing the solution proposed by the manager.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 518 350
No. of Characters: 2586 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.771 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.992 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.584 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.522 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.131 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.536 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 340, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...ws only in the past year and because of this complaints have increased. What if the ...
^^^^
Line 3, column 479, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...weather news compared to other news and this years the coverage has become so less t...
^^^^
Line 3, column 557, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: This
...less that, viewers started complaining? This this scenario proves the authors assumption ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 587, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...plaining? This this scenario proves the authors assumption wrong. The main fact that...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 557, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun advertisers is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
... other reasons why a program is getting less advertisers along with the viewership c...
^^^^
Line 7, column 429, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...es reduce the chances of success of the authors suggestion. To conclude, the author ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, regarding, so, except for, for instance, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2643.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 518.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10231660232 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77070365392 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6423325132 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.416988416988 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 813.6 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => 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: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.321660716 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.913043478 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5217391304 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.91304347826 5.70786347227 51% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.40546944324 0.218282227539 186% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.127098990746 0.0743258471296 171% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.115174026054 0.0701772020484 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.232611594974 0.128457276422 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.135274289806 0.0628817314937 215% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 98.500998004 98% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.