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.
In the given memorandum from the business manager of a television station, the writer contends that the station needs to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level in order to preclude attracting more viewers to programs and avoiding loss of any further advertising revenues. The author enumerates a couple of factors to espouse the claim. While more time was allocated to national news, most complaints were received from viewers who were concerned with the tv's coverage of weather and local news. Also, a local business started to cancel their advertisements for the late-night program. Though the argument sounds plausible, copious logical flaws are presented; the necessity of revision is required for attaining a more desirable degree.
The first point argues most of the complaints are received from viewers because they ask for more allocated time on local news and weather. The important fact is that there is no given absolute number of complaints; the author needs to convince the argumentation based on a large number of negative feedback. For example, the broadcast could gain merely three complaints, and two of them were about this issue. Then, the overall tiny number of complaints can be negligible since it implicates that the large viewers are still enjoying the current system of the late-night new program. Or, it could indicate the majority of people enjoy watching the current program with more federal news rather than local news. Providing total complaints the station received is going to help to convince the claim that appreciated people are not happy with the current dissection of time.
The television station has experienced lower revenues since the local businesses have started to cancel their commercial. The pellucid reason for why the businesses have decided to cancel the contracts is not given in the passage. Many different reasons could be involved in the situation. The price of commercials could be too expensive in the television station, or they could ascertain the competitor tv show proffer the cheaper price. The correlation between giving up more commercials and the late-night program with more national news is not limpid. The reason for less revenue in the commercial sector needs to be elucidated through the distinguished method such as conducting the survey.
Lastly, no comparison between the current trend and the previous trend is given. For example, notwithstanding lower revenue on local commercials, it could have noticeably higher profits from national commercials; or, the current tv could engender more viewers who are interested in national news. The paucity of the comparison makes the logic dangerous. The author should bring the comparison to make the claim impeccable.
The claim based on these reasons is not trustworthy. The author should elucidate more logical reasoning to gainsay all the inflammatory points and convey more telling arguments to readers.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2445 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.224 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.697 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.348 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.101 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.348 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.289 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.493 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 273, Rule ID: LARGE_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, or simply use 'many' or 'numerous'
Suggestion: many; numerous
... to convince the argumentation based on a large number of negative feedback. For example, the bro...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 232, Rule ID: NUMEROUS_DIFFERENT[1]
Message: Use simply 'Many'.
Suggestion: Many
... contracts is not given in the passage. Many different reasons could be involved in the situat...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 557, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... with more national news is not limpid. The reason for less revenue in the commerci...
^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...arison to make the claim impeccable. The claim based on these reasons is not tru...
^^^
Line 9, column 54, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ed on these reasons is not trustworthy. The author should elucidate more logical re...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, if, lastly, so, still, then, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2499.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.33974358974 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7593297664 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.49358974359 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 765.9 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 19.0 8.76447105788 217% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.6656362262 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.652173913 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.347826087 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.287661772731 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0747045278723 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0933411945413 0.0701772020484 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.150420686383 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.119567591539 0.0628817314937 190% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.81 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => 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.