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.
The business manager in the afforementioned argument states that the television station had lost many of its viewers due to decreased time of coverage of weather and local news. It also goes on to say that the "local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us." He has concluded that in order to increase the viewership of the channel, it is of utmost importance to "expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs." The argument presented, is however, based on the premise of a few weak assumptions which shall be discussed in detail. This short communication, shall try to explore the weaknesses of the argument and present three valid questions that would critically challenge the hypothesis.
Firstly, the bussiness manager, in the first line talks about the distribution of the news coverage time only in the 'late-night news program'. He goes on to say that the complaints received by the viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. Since news channels are likely to operate typically throughout the day, it is quite possible that news realting to weather conditions are broadcasted during the rest of the day. Moreover, he never mentions about the complaints concerning the duration of weather news broadcast. He blantantly states that the complaints revolved around that area. It is highly possible that the complaints demand the quality of news reporting to improve in this sector. It may point out the lack of appropriateness of news reported when it comes to local news. Hence, the diagnosis of this problem requires more information on the nature of the problem, rather than assuming that it bothers the reduced broadcast time.
Secondly, he argues that the local business which used to advertise in the late night program has withdrawn their advertising contract. Again, the author here is weakly assuming the 'lesser time of coverage of local news' to be the cause of the problem. The withdrawal of contract may depend on many other factors as well. It can be the case of a better offer with another news reporting agency or the dissentment of the local business with the nature of presentation of their advertisement in this channel. The manager should investigate the actual cause for losing the contract rather than blaming it all on lower coverage time of local news.
Thirdly, the manager abruptly concludes saying that in order to attract more viewers and stop losing advertisement revenues, the coverage of local and weather news on their program must increases. This rash decision taking on the part of a higher authority of the news agency is an issue of grave concern. The fact that the issue has been underanalyzed is clear through his weak assumptions reagrding policy implmetation of the problem. He has completely ignored the fact that the audience may be generally dissastisfied with the overall presentation of their news channel. The contracts should also be revisited, lest more advertising revenues can be generated. If this is the case, the author is completely flawed in this hypothesis regarding the whole situation.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the author has relied on a perfunctory approach of wishful thinking wherein he accused only less coverage of weather and local neews to be the blocks of his failure. The argument definitely demands for more analysis and proofs regarding the doomed business.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 14 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 570 350
No. of Characters: 2859 1500
No. of Different Words: 248 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.886 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.016 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.758 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 168 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 118 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.923 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.604 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.483 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 229, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
... by the viewers were concerned with the stations coverage of weather and local news. Sin...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 689, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[3]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'reporting improving'.
Suggestion: reporting improving
...e complaints demand the quality of news reporting to improve in this sector. It may point out the la...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 298, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d proofs regarding the doomed business.
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, well, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 89.0 55.5748502994 160% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2945.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 570.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16666666667 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88617158649 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86758397572 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 258.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452631578947 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 909.9 705.55239521 129% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 15.0 4.96107784431 302% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 78.8758584211 57.8364921388 136% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.708333333 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.75 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.41666666667 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 18.0 6.88822355289 261% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.371523880361 0.218282227539 170% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.110501378152 0.0743258471296 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0809462177296 0.0701772020484 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.210493231537 0.128457276422 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.10927892423 0.0628817314937 174% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.77 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 144.0 98.500998004 146% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 29.0 12.3882235529 234% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.