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 argument from the memorandum of the TV station business manager defaults in certain areas which would be highlighted below:
He stated that "most of the complaints received from viewers..." without actually giving statistics on the total number of sampled opinions from viewers. While the adjective 'most' might indicate a larger proportion of people, without the total number to quantify the statement, the qualifier falls flat. If the TV station ideally served up to 1 million people per airing of its late-night news, and the sampling was done, for instance on only 10 viewers, with 8 of them being against the reports on the weather and local news, his statement that 'most viewers...' fails to hold water seeing as the sample size is insignificant and does not compare to the general population. He therefore would need to provide sufficeint data backing his claim of 'most' viewers dissents.
Also his argument may be weakened based on the demographics and range of the viewers sampled. Different people have different idiosyncracies, and the business manager's submission did not account for this variance in his memorandum. If per chance the sampling was only done on the local population or citizenry who were regular viewers of the late-night program, without accounting for foreigners or expatriates who lived within the country, it would serve as no surprise therefore that the local populace would be more interested in local news and weather than in national news which foreign viewers might take more interest in.
The business manager also makes a huge leap in his assumption that local businesses limited their advertising contracts with the TV station because of its reduced coverage of local news and weather. Economies are constantly in a state of flux due to factors ranging from governmental policies and taxation to a change in consumer/popular demand. Television advertising costs are usually of no small amount, and the possibility of economic woes or variances might have influenced the sudden decline in business ads made. Evidence in this regard would weaken the business manager's position.
Lastly, it is also possible that local businesses might have undergone restrategising in their advertisement policies, and may want to switch from television ads to other forms such as radio or social media. Also, these businesses might have discovered that the TV ads run were making little to no impact on theri revenue, hence decided to cut the additional costs and invest in other platforms to grow their market base and revenue
such as customer reIt is unknown whether t would need to take this factor in
The period covered in
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 431 350
No. of Characters: 2181 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.556 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.06 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.679 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.938 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 16.865 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.657 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... his claim of most viewers dissents. Also his argument may be weakened based on t...
^^^^
Line 5, column 160, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...ferent idiosyncracies, and the business managers submission did not account for this var...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, hence, if, lastly, may, so, therefore, while, for instance, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2275.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29069767442 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83085926829 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.551162790698 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 693.9 705.55239521 98% => 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: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 96.983403798 57.8364921388 168% => OK
Chars per sentence: 162.5 119.503703932 136% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.7142857143 23.324526521 132% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.92857142857 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224656322725 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.070989936469 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0608590066837 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100470822426 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0509265461554 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.03 48.3550499002 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.64 8.32208582834 116% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 17.5 12.3882235529 141% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.