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 argument states that due to the coverage of national and local news and weather has altered, complaints received has increased and advertisements has dropped, therefore such policies should be restored. Although it seems logical and persuasive at first, it can be apparently found to be misleading unless more evidences can be provided to the assumptions.
First, they are concerned about the complaints received from viewers. It is a common error in statistics that, it does not provide how many viewers that are actually satisfied to such arrangement. It is possible that most audiences are actually pleased but are not willing to call in, just to express their fulfillment. On the other hand, those who are loath to watch national news are more willing to complain about it. Deduce the coverage alternation as a failure by illustrating the complaints received is not a fine and logical inferring.
Next, there are many reasons that may influence advertising contracts signed. The argument should also compare the advertising renevue that other televation station got and contract signed to support its asuumption better. It is possible that due to an ad cutoff from other stations, merchandises have altered their choice to collaborate with other stations. Also, if the economy takes place, fewer profit from consumers surely happens, and that businesses would correspondingly cancel its advertisement contracts to suppress its cost.
Last but not least, it is not evident that by changing the coverage percentages of programs back may come into rescue. It is probable that audiences have changed their preferred television station, and that such re-alter may even upset those who are grateful to watch more naitonal news. In addition, as the preference of the audience receiving information gradually changes with time, sources like radio, internet or even newspapers are also latent rivals for advertisement contracts. Local businesses may tend to sign contracts to either social media, and that increasing the proportion of local news and weather cannot grant to solve the declined revenue from advertisements.
To conclude, I do not appreciate the reasons that the argument displayed are appropriate and sufficient to make such statement. Before any decision is made afterwards, more investigations, explicit data and proof should be provided to support such argument and persuade the televisinon CEO.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 376 350
No. of Characters: 1995 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.403 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.306 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.889 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.118 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.519 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.558 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.043 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, apparently, but, first, if, may, so, therefore, in addition, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2049.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.44946808511 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95387503394 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.56914893617 0.468620217663 121% => OK
syllable_count: 636.3 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.4963935758 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.529411765 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1176470588 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.52941176471 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.166637955254 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0487650955149 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0585180954106 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0817756844535 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0623532824249 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.73 8.32208582834 117% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.