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.
Citing the memorandum from the business manager of a television station : In order to increase viewers to the news program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, the station should expand their weather and local news coverage on all of their news program. This argument as it stands now is dubious as it is based on several unwarranted assumptions, due to lack of exhaustive research and facts, discussed in the latter paragraphs.
Firstly, the business manager is too quick to assume that the decrease in time for weather and local news increasing the time to national news is the only reason why the advertising contracts are being cancelled. Perhaps the businesses are getting better quality advertising and good financial deal at other television station. The case might also be that the businesses are shifting their advertising campaign to other mass media like Internet, social service camps, celebrity endorsements etc Thus if any of this is true, then the contention that increasing the time to weather and local news would stop the losing of advertising revenues would not be valid.
Secondly, the manager claims that there were a lot of complaints from the viewers concerned with the coverage of weather and local news. Perhaps the complaints were done by the competitors as to create a negative impact on the stations decision and revenue. Further it might be the case that the number of complaints might not be significant enough to be requiring exigency as thus the expanding of coverage of weather and local news would not be fruitful for the station.
Lastly, the business manager presumes that the decrease in time devoted to weather news and local news is the only reason behind the complaints, decreasing in the viewership and cancelling of the advertisement camps. But by exhaustive research a lot of reasons would come to surface. For instance, perhaps the viewers are decreasing due to the lessening of the audio and video quality of the station.
In conclusion, the managers argument is invalid at best and specious at worst due to the unstated assumptions mentioned in former paragraphs. Thus to make this statement warranted further eviden
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 357 350
No. of Characters: 1793 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.347 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.022 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.712 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.924 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.769 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.639 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.053 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 228, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...s as to create a negative impact on the stations decision and revenue. Further it might ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...y of the station. In conclusion, the managers argument is invalid at best and speciou...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 143, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...mptions mentioned in former paragraphs. Thus to make this statement warranted furthe...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, then, thus, as to, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1836.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 357.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14285714286 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34677393335 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78353602128 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 165.0 204.123752495 81% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.46218487395 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 563.4 705.55239521 80% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.0589569112 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.230769231 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.4615384615 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.23076923077 5.70786347227 144% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.367731234006 0.218282227539 168% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.126940360784 0.0743258471296 171% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.121863075387 0.0701772020484 174% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.200296578928 0.128457276422 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0943215449353 0.0628817314937 150% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.78 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.