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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
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 manager's memorandum hastily decides on restoring previous airtime given to weather and local news in the late-night news program. In doing so, he makes many unwarranted assumptions. A closer scrutiny of corroborating facts and data is necessary for evaluating the argument's merits: it could yet be valid, though, there could be other contributing factors. Essentially, the business executive needs to understand the cause of the problem before implementing the recommendation. He could be making a mistake, more so, since restoring program segments needs more careful deliberation of relevant and supporting evidence.
The memorandum mentions viewers' complaints pertaining to station weather and local news coverage in the intervening year. There is no information on the specific nature of the complaints. Also, analyzing pertinent data on audience groups, their numbers and complaint frequency is perhaps necessary; it needs a closer examining if they actually represent the particular audience characteristics and demographics. Moreover, only by closely examining the specific nature of the negative feedback, would the contributing factors be more clear. Perhaps, the audiences are expressing their views about the hosts of the television show, or there are opinions about the day time weather and local news segments. Only by completing a survey, gleaning insights from it, the manager makes an informed decision about whether there is actually a relationship between late night program segment devoted to local news and weather and the specific frequency and germane nature of audience complaints.
Additionally, credible and relevant cross examining of evidence which pertains to the local businesses that have cancelled the advertising contracts. Just because these contracts were cancelled in the past year, doesn't necessarily mean that it is a coincidence. There could be other contributing factors. The manager needs to speak and survey these business representatives and gather more information: their preferences, concerns also needs knowing. Moreover, only if the television station establishes that the local businesses were actually dismayed by the late-night program segments and airtime which were given to local weather and news, will there be an informed decision.
Furthermore, evidence which assists efforts for increasing audience numbers, perhaps facilitates the recommendation. Viewers are probably tuning into other stations, watching something else during the meantime. Merely assuming that they would just want local news and weather restored is actually dangerous to the business interests; their tastes could have changed, their preferences and characteristics also needs to be known from research. Maybe they are doing something else which grabs their attention, or they get their news sources from somewhere else, perhaps.
The television station simply cannot go back to restoring airtime for local news and weather, just because there were higher ratings before. There were problems, which is why there were cancelled contracts and declining audience numbers. But to just assume without closely deliberating any relevant evidence is actually dangerous. The station and the manager needs to closely examine the potential implications before making an informed decision.
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: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 486 350
No. of Characters: 2765 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.695 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.689 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.894 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 194 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 138 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 83 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.709 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.417 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.49 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.051 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
The managers memorandum hastily decides on restoring...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 213, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...tracts were cancelled in the past year, doesnt necessarily mean that it is a coinciden...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, furthermore, if, may, moreover, so
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2834.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 485.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.84329896907 5.12650576532 114% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69283662038 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97499838122 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.482474226804 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 877.5 705.55239521 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.5720871249 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.083333333 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2083333333 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.29166666667 5.70786347227 40% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.266189713745 0.218282227539 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0724188181713 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0906208063343 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148370350837 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0430161641606 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.26 48.3550499002 71% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 12.197005988 111% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.59 12.5979740519 132% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.19 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 17.0 11.9071856287 143% => 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.