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.
The main idea presented in this memorandum by a business manager of a television station is to restore the time devoted to local and weather news in the late-night new program to its levels from the past years to avoid losses in revenue and customers. The evidence they have presented to support the same is the complaints recieved from viewers with respect to their coverage of local and weather news as well as local businesses cancelling their advertising contracts with the television station. I believe this argument is currently quite weak, and needs at least three crucial pieces of evidence to be considered.
The first is evidence pointing out that the complaints from viewers re the coverage of local and weather news in the late-night news program are actually concerned with the reduced time dedicated to them. Maybe, some viewers feel that the weather or local news coverage has been incorrect or not presented well. It could also very well be that the viewers are unhappy with the content the station is choosing to include in these reports, rather than the reduced focus on them in the late-night news program. If either of these were true, the argument presented would be really weakened.
The second evidence needed is the content of viewer complaints prior to this change. Perhaps, the complaints before this year has included viewers saying the same things about the weather and local news coverage. It is also possible that there were complaints wanting more focus on national news on the late-night news program over the local and weather news. If any of these possibilities were true, the argument would lose a lot of weight.
The third evidence required is related to the cancellation of the advertising contracts with the television station by local businesses is definitely related to this shift in the content of the late-night new program specifically. It is quite possible that this is completely unrelated to the reduced focus on local news in this program. It could be that the businesses have been offered more lucrative contracts by competing television stations. It is also possible that the local businesses themselves are facing financial issues and are thus cancelling the advertising contracts to cut their own costs. If any of these was to be true, the argument would not hold much water.
To conclude, the argument as it stands is flawed. If, at minimum, the highlighted evidence could be provided it would be possible to analyse the argument more effectively.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 448, 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.
...racts by competing television stations. It is also possible that the local busines...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, if, may, really, second, so, third, thus, well, as to, at least, as well as, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2097.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05301204819 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67874869773 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 170.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.409638554217 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 656.1 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.8650602198 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.5 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0555555556 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.38888888889 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.40172555103 0.218282227539 184% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.133636306815 0.0743258471296 180% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.141811011672 0.0701772020484 202% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.232883015519 0.128457276422 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.132694108555 0.0628817314937 211% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.55 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 448, 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.
...racts by competing television stations. It is also possible that the local busines...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, if, may, really, second, so, third, thus, well, as to, at least, as well as, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2097.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 415.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.05301204819 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51348521516 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67874869773 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 170.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.409638554217 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 656.1 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.8650602198 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.5 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0555555556 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.38888888889 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.40172555103 0.218282227539 184% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.133636306815 0.0743258471296 180% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.141811011672 0.0701772020484 202% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.232883015519 0.128457276422 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.132694108555 0.0628817314937 211% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.31 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.55 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.