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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to 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 the argument.
The author suggests that the television channel should broadcast weather and local news over national news to attract more viewers and advertizers. The author substantiates his claim by stating that the advertizers canceled their contracts during the past year since the increased national news broadcasting time and the customers started complaining about the coverage of local and weather news. However, there are some major flaws in the evidence on which the conclusion is drawn. Unless these flaws are cleared, we won't get a sound conclusion.
Firstly. The author assumes the current trend over the past year will continue in the upcoming years, as well. But, we have no evidence about the year that was taken into reference, maybe the year mentioned above be an year of recession or the year where new government reforms are implemented. So, we donot know how the future years are going to turn out for the advertisers and for the company. Companies should take decisions based on prolonged analysis over years and not just one year. So, time frame used to draw the inference seems too week to make the conclusion ubiquitous. We need more evidence about the subsequent years or previous years performance of the channel to make a sound argument.
Secondly, It is stated that the viewers are concerned with the channel's coverage of weather news and local news. Maybe, the recent coverage of a local event by the channel is controversial and caused outrage among the viewers. This might also reduce the advertisers confidence on the channel. Also, There is also a possibility that the weather predictions that the channel is putting out are majorly flawed and not covering the actual truth. In such cases, the viewer who rely on the channel to make their plans based on the forcast might end up drafting a plan that is potentially bad. If either of the above scenarios are true, the reason for the complaints or decreasing revenue is not because of the national news coverage but because of other reasons. Hence, the conclusion drawn by the writer doesn't hold water.
Finally, We have no idea about what kind of national news is being broadcasted in the channel. There is a possibility where the locals are majorly interested in sports but the major focus given by the channel management is politics or economics. Also, the locals may be interested in long fruitful debates across various topics rather than a news anchor just reading out facts. They may view these debates for longer durations which can encourage advertizers to shift back again to our channel. So, we donot know if the content or way of presentation of national news is an issue or the national news as a whole is an issue. Therefore, we need more evidence on the above discussed issues in order to derive make make the conclusion all-persuasive.
To conclude, The argument as it stands now is based on many unstated assumptions if actually answered might actually weaken the argument. We might need more information and discussion on the content of news, locals preferences and long- term data to derive a concrete conclusion. And, we can actually come up with a solid solution to increase the revenues of the channel.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 540 350
No. of Characters: 2606 1500
No. of Different Words: 256 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.821 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.826 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.605 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.191 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.704 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.279 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.279 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 216, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...ence, maybe the year mentioned above be an year of recession or the year where new...
^^
Line 2, column 644, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... about the subsequent years or previous years performance of the channel to make a so...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 64, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'channels'' or 'channel's'?
Suggestion: channels'; channel's
...that the viewers are concerned with the channels coverage of weather news and local news...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 254, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'advertisers'' or 'advertiser's'?
Suggestion: advertisers'; advertiser's
...the viewers. This might also reduce the advertisers confidence on the channel. Also, There ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 799, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...nce, the conclusion drawn by the writer doesnt hold water. Finally, We have no idea a...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 707, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: make
...ove discussed issues in order to derive make make the conclusion all-persuasive. To conc...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, well, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2660.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 538.0 441.139720559 122% => OK
Chars per words: 4.94423791822 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.81610080973 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66291690361 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.485130111524 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 837.9 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.0360968784 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.307692308 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6923076923 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.256770813761 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0684440499356 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.082371695814 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.149384347964 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0919548974012 0.0628817314937 146% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => 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: 11.37 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.