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 memorandum from the business manager of a television station concludes that they should restore the time devoted to local and weather news to its former state as they are losing money with the currently changed program-run-time. The conclusion was reached based on the complaints concerning the local and weather news and loss of advertising contracts from local businesses. This argument can be better evaluated if three specific evidences are presented.
First of all, the evidence regarding the spcific nature of the complaints concerning local and weather news is mandatory. The viewers might complain about many things concerning local and weather news. For example, they might really want to see more of weather and local news. In that case, the conclusion reached by the memorandum is quite strong. But, the complains may also state that the viewers don't even want to see the reduced local and weather news. They are so perturbed with local and weather news that they don't want any of it. In that case, the conclusion drawn in the memorandum is seriously undermined.
Furthermore, the reason behind the local businesses canceling advertisment contrats with the television station is needed to be stated. There could be a thousand reasons behind cancelling an advertising contract. For example, the businesses could be out of business themselves or they might have just reached the planned time period for advertisement and would've cancelled their advertising contract anyway.
Finally, the quality of the programs is what attracts the viewers. So, if the quality of national news is not good, like it doesn't actually cover all the recent incidents or lacks several segements like business, politics, technology etc or the segments are not rich enough, it is not going to attract many viewers, regardless of the run-time of local and weather news.
To conclude, it is evident that the argument as it is presented, is not based on substantial evidence. To be able to evaluate this argument the above mentioned evidences are must.
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: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 333 350
No. of Characters: 1675 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.272 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.03 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.734 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.841 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.349 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 295, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...eather and local news. In that case, the conclusion reached by the memorandum is ...
^^
Line 2, column 402, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...mplains may also state that the viewers dont even want to see the reduced local and ...
^^^^
Line 2, column 520, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...d with local and weather news that they dont want any of it. In that case, the concl...
^^^^
Line 3, column 356, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: would've
...anned time period for advertisement and wouldve cancelled their advertising contract an...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 125, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...y of national news is not good, like it doesnt actually cover all the recent incidents...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, anyway, but, finally, first, furthermore, if, may, really, regarding, so, for example, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1716.0 2260.96107784 76% => OK
No of words: 329.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21580547112 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25891501996 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7903927503 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 166.0 204.123752495 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.504559270517 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 525.6 705.55239521 74% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 64.3405730668 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.941176471 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3529411765 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.76470588235 5.70786347227 119% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
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: 0.334321418226 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.1028195612 0.0743258471296 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0854932714581 0.0701772020484 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170224584018 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.116352212461 0.0628817314937 185% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.