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 memorandum, from the business manager suggested that they should increase the weather and local news to its former level in order to attract more viewers and avoid losing any further advertisement revenues. However before this prompt is evaluated some questions must be answered.
Firstly, the author does not give a lucid evidence that the complaints the news station received were in favour of the weather and local news. It could be that the preferance of the weather news is mostly prefered in the morning rather at night. Also, regarding the complaints of the local news the prompt doesnot give a clear view if the complaints were made because the running time was curtailed or because the quality of the news content were not satisfactory.
Secondly, the reason for the cancelation of the advertisement contract is also not clear. The reason, according to the business manager, for cancelation of the adevertisement was the decrease in the running time of the local and weather news. But, to get the advertisement contract rather than increasing the running time of the late night local news the content that attracts the viewers must be focused. There is no clue if the TRP of the show is good or bad. Nobody would contract with the tv show that has low TRP as the content they are serving doesnot attract more vievers and less profit for the advertisers.
Lastly, rather than being so parochial and being so focused on the soaring of teh running timeof weather and local news; holistically the problem should be identified and worked upon.
In conclusion, the prompt as it stands has many flaws based on unwarrented assumption. If author provides the answer to the above questions that have been raise then the validity of the prompt can be reconsidered.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 13 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 299 350
No. of Characters: 1444 1500
No. of Different Words: 149 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.158 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.829 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.597 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 103 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 78 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 44 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 28 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.894 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.373 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.373 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 215, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...ing any further advertisement revenues. However before this prompt is evaluated some qu...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 88, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
... flaws based on unwarrented assumption. If author provides the answer to the above...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1477.0 2260.96107784 65% => OK
No of words: 299.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.9397993311 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.1583189471 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66989780122 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 152.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.508361204013 0.468620217663 108% => OK
syllable_count: 447.3 705.55239521 63% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.1717759362 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.615384615 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.69230769231 5.70786347227 135% => OK
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 : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.293933590556 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0987338965829 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.092605770581 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.140745156047 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0920922308022 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.67 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 63.0 98.500998004 64% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.