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.
In the memorandum, it is stated that to attract more viewership and local advertisements for the news programs the author plans to restore the previous year's time period devoted to weather and local news. The business manager has come to this conclusion due to the cancellation of advertising contracts as well as complaints received from the viewers. However, three questions must be answered before this recommendation can be properly evaluated.
First of all, what are the types of complaints? In other words, are the complaints related to less time coverage of local and weather news? It is possible that the criticism received may be due to wrongly telecasts of the news. Further, there is a possibility that the quality of local news may have been degraded and been limited to just two or three areas. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, what is the reason behind the recall of advertising contracts? The writer has not mentioned any details regarding why the local entrepreneurs have withdrawn their advertising. It is possible that there is a global pandemic going on which is reducing their revenue and the owners have decided not to invest in any type of advertising. It is also possible that the news channel may have reduced the on-screen time and increased the prices of the advertisement more than the local businesses can afford which caused the withdrawal of the contracts. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, has the main late-night speaker left the channel? The author has not mentioned the reason for the reduction in the viewership of their late-night news programs. It is possible that the most beloved speaker may have shifted to a different news channel which in turn resulted in the transfer of the viewership to another channel. Further, the new speaker assigned for late-night news may not be as competent as the previous one. Perhaps, the audience watching the news may not be interested in the content provided the by the channel. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwanted assumptions, If the author is able to answer the three questions and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to increase coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs.
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: 20 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2139 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.94 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.797 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.65 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.974 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, well, in conclusion, as well as, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2190.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.05773672055 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87170352554 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.450346420323 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 675.0 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.4946239941 57.8364921388 132% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.5 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.65 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0 5.70786347227 123% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.309207375109 0.218282227539 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.092119201288 0.0743258471296 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0961980788042 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.180267186842 0.128457276422 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0781996659182 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.