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.
According to the memorandum from the business manager of a television station, to avoid losing more revenues due to advertising, the compamy should restore the time back to local news. To prove his point, the maager said that the local businesses that where advertising with them withdraw their contracts. The argument lies on series of assumptions that are unpersuasive and illogical. This would be proved in the following essay:
First, the manager states that since the company has increase the time devoted to national news and to compromise this this new time they have reduce the time provided to weather and local news, they are receiving a number of complains. The manager has used the word 'most' which is very vague and it can be interpretated as any number which depends on the reader. For some it could mean 1-2 complains while for others it might mean 10-11 complains. Unless, the manager provides a specific number of people who has complained it would be difficult to assume that a lot of people are complaining.
Secondly, the manager has states that the local businesses has canceled their advertising contracts with them. There are many reasons for a cancelation like, the cost to advertise has gone up, other television station are providing same or better benefits to businesses at a much lower cost, or the businesses might have been closed down. While showing national news, there is a change that a national wide company advertise with the station and this would earn the company much higher money compare to money they earn from advertisement by local businesses. So, the manager should check all these facts before coming to any kind of conclusion.
Thirdly, the manager says that the majority of the complains are about the station's coverage of weather and local news. It might happen that due to cost cutting followed by the company, they have dismiss many repoters. The new lower number of reporters are unable to cover the entire field and this is causing the problem. It could also happen that due to less covergae the TRP of the televsion station has gone down and because of this the local businesses are cancelling their contracts. So, even if the company restore the time to weather and local news it would not do any good as the television station would not be able to cover the field and the complains would continue.
In conclusion, the manager should consider all these facts are carefully analyse it. The manager should also do a proper cost analysis as reverting to previous program would increase the cost. Manager should conduct a survey by which the company would come to know how many people are intrested in watching the local news over national news3. If the number is small then there is no need to make any changes to the current situation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2271 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.771 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.439 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.167 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.065 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 115, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: this
...oted to national news and to compromise this this new time they have reduce the time prov...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 144, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'reduced'.
Suggestion: reduced
...compromise this this new time they have reduce the time provided to weather and local ...
^^^^^^
Line 2, column 449, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Unless” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...r others it might mean 10-11 complains. Unless, the manager provides a specific number...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 76, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...majority of the complains are about the stations coverage of weather and local news. It ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 197, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Use past participle here: 'dismissed'.
Suggestion: dismissed
...ting followed by the company, they have dismiss many repoters. The new lower number of ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 74, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'analysed'.
Suggestion: analysed
... consider all these facts are carefully analyse it. The manager should also do a proper...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 344, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ing the local news over national news3. If the number is small then there is no ne...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, if, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, while, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2315.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86344537815 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.49949768981 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453781512605 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 728.1 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.0623283198 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.75 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.330634705379 0.218282227539 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0917370323898 0.0743258471296 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0966939493529 0.0701772020484 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.193616119437 0.128457276422 151% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0440566418716 0.0628817314937 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => 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.