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 of a television station argued that the television station should restore the time devoted to weather and local news due to the increased complaints about them. However, a few pieces of evidenc need to be established before this choice can be made.
First, the contents of the complaints should be given when the manger mentioned that when weather and local news took up less time, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. Did the viewers complain about the shortened time of weather and local news? Maybe the viewers wanted to have even less time to weather and local news instead of increased time. Or, maybe they didn't mention the time of the programs at all. It was the quility of the news not the duration of the news that bothered them. Maybe a famous anchor has been replaced by a new one, and most viewers are not satisfied with the new anchor's style. If this is the case, maybe more time is needed for the viewers to become used to the new anchor. Or, the manager should consider making more high-quality news content rather than increase the time of low-quality programs. Moreover, were the complaints reliable? If there were only one or two complaints, relying on the data as evidence for the general viewers' opinions was problematic. When citing the complaints, more details should be given to evaluate the value of them.
On the other hand, it was problematic to use the fact that local businesses that used to advertise have just canceled their advertising contracts as an indication of a need for more weather and local news. Maybe this is not related to the quality or the duration of the programs. The price of advertising has recently increased, so many companies are unwilling to pay the high price to advertise their products. If this is the case, the manager should consider lowering the advertising price to attract more advertising customers. On the other hand, maybe there is a general downturn in the local industry. Therefore, the local businesses need to cut down on some expenses and among them, the advertising cost is the first one to be reduced. If this is the case, the cancellation of advertising is not related to the news program at all. When the economy is getting better, the advertising will come back. Or maybe less people are watching TV nowadays. No matter what the program is, the number of viewers is drastically decreasing. Hence, this is not the station's policy to blame for but the entire trend that leads to the standstill of television advertising.
To make the argument more convincing, the manager needs to consider the specific evidence as above mentioned.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 463 350
No. of Characters: 2194 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.639 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.739 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.552 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.52 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.747 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.48 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.441 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 202, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ed from viewers were concerned with the stations coverage of weather and local news. Did...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 440, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...stead of increased time. Or, maybe they didnt mention the time of the programs at all...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 916, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...he advertising will come back. Or maybe less people are watching TV nowadays. No mat...
^^^^
Line 5, column 1057, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...ally decreasing. Hence, this is not the stations policy to blame for but the entire tren...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, therefore, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2251.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 462.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87229437229 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63618218583 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60430270348 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443722943723 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 707.4 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.6925947019 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.04 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.48 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.44 5.70786347227 60% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.339365279202 0.218282227539 155% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.098083304226 0.0743258471296 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109521454072 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198915109486 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.12385260883 0.0628817314937 197% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.7 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.54 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.