The following is the memorandum from the business manager of a television station.
"Over the past year, our late-night programs have devoted increased time to national news and less time to local and weather news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from our viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise in our late-night programs have just canceled the advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers and to avoid losing any further revenues, we should restore the time devoted to the 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 our argument.
The memorandum suggests that to prevent losing advertising avenues, the late-night news program should devote more time to weather and local news as compared to national news. For this the business manager claims that there have beeen viwers' complaints regarding the coverage of local news and weather and that local businesses have cancelled their advertising contracts due to the same reason. This arguments is, however, flawed and three pieces evidence are needed to properly assess it.
Firstly, the manager should provide evidence that suggests that devoting more time to local news and weather would increase the viewership. It is possible that the viewers are simply not interested in the show because its quality has been declining lately. Another possibility is that earlier the children would have had their vacations, and now that school has started, families prefer sleeping early rather than watching the late-night news program. Because there is no strong evidence pointing towards increased viewership on switching to more time on local news, the argument does not hold.
Further, there needs to be fairly analyzed and documented evidence to prove that all the viewers of the show equally believe that lesser time should be devoted to national news than local news and weather. If there have been complaints, what part of the region are they from? Are they concentrated close together or scattered across the region? It might be true that the only complaints registered have been done on an unfair basis, i.e. some people have been paid to do so, just so that this decision can be supported. It is also unclear 'what' the complaints exactly said. It is possible that they only suggested better quality local or weather news and not more coverage 'at the cost of' national news' time being cut short. The above-mentioned examples, thus, weaken the argument.
Lastly, a copy of the contracts with the local businessmen, that have been referred to in the memoradum, needs to be provided as an evidence. It can be the case that the contracts have simply ended after a specific time period and not been cancelled. There also needs to be more evidence about 'how' the local bussinesses used to advertise the show and to 'what extent'. Only then can a fair decision be made in their name. Simply stating that the businesses have cancelled the contract and less time needs to be given to national news, thus, does not hold water.
The argument made by the manager is, due to the above-mentioned lacking pieces of evidence heavily flawed. If proper evidence is provided to support the argument, a better decision can be made.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2142 1500
No. of Different Words: 198 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.913 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.482 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.762 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.129 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 396, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: These
...ising contracts due to the same reason. This arguments is, however, flawed and three...
^^^^
Line 1, column 411, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[4]
Message: You should probably use: 'are'.
Suggestion: are
... due to the same reason. This arguments is, however, flawed and three pieces evide...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ce are needed to properly assess it. Firstly, the manager should provide evid...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...al news, the argument does not hold. Further, there needs to be fairly analyz...
^^^
Line 5, column 577, 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.
...clear what the complaints exactly said. It is possible that they only suggested be...
^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...examples, thus, weaken the argument. Lastly, a copy of the contracts with the...
^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nal news, thus, does not hold water. The argument made by the manager is, due...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, regarding, so, then, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 43.0 55.5748502994 77% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2199.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.04357798165 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.54093972259 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474770642202 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 685.8 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.4282961732 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.714285714 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.7619047619 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.2380952381 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.347623362557 0.218282227539 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105407313837 0.0743258471296 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.10954463914 0.0701772020484 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206427652046 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.121425397666 0.0628817314937 193% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.95 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.