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 would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The following argument is given from a memorandum from a business manager of a television station. It states that the time devoted to weather and local news should be increased and brought back to the time devoted last year to attract more viewers and avoid losing any further advertising revenues. The following are the evidences required to further check the correctness of the given claim.
It is given that for the past one year the time devoted to national news has been increased and that to weather news and local news has been cut down. We need to understand that why was the change made in first place. Maybe the change was made to attract the viewership of people from other regions or it may have been done due to the request of local people who want to see more national news. It is nowhere stated that such a change has reduced or increased the number of people watching the late-night news program. If this change has been done for the same and has been able to attract more people then it would not be a wise step to cut time given for national news, and hence would weaken the argument.
Continuing in the same direction we need data for the viewership of the late-night news program. If a lot of non-local people watch the show then showing more of local news would not be recommended. This would also weaken the argument. But if the viewership is local people then they would want to see more of the local news and weather news. This then would help to bolster the argument made.
Apart from this it is given that most of the complaints received from viewers were regarding the coverage of weather and local news. It is not distinctly stated that it was about the time alloted to these news. Maybe it was on the quality of content in these news. Maybe the local news shown did not fully cover the details of the news or anything like this. Thus the exact contents of the complaints are required before this data can be used to support the claim.
Another major point stated here is that a lot of local businesses have cancelled their contract with the late-night news program. If local news time reduction is the sole reason for this then it will help us to increase advertisements by increasing local news shown on the program. But there can be various other reasons for this apart from the fact that local news time has been reduced. It can be due to prices charged by the program, bad experience of the businessman while working with the channel or may be they found some other platform to advertise on. If these are the reasons then increasing the time would surely not help to avoid cancellation of the contracts.
So to close the given argument might seem valid but a lot of data is required on the change of time devotion earlier, data on viewer base of the program and reasons for advertisement contract cancellation to support it
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 24 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2311 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.487 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.333 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.458 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.765 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.51 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 603, Rule ID: LESS_MORE_THEN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'than'?
Suggestion: than
...nd has been able to attract more people then it would not be a wise step to cut time...
^^^^
Line 5, column 98, 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.
...wership of the late-night news program. If a lot of non-local people watch the sho...
^^
Line 7, column 200, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this news' or 'these newses'?
Suggestion: this news; these newses
...d that it was about the time alloted to these news. Maybe it was on the quality of content...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 254, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this news' or 'these newses'?
Suggestion: this news; these newses
...ybe it was on the quality of content in these news. Maybe the local news shown did not ful...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 360, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ails of the news or anything like this. Thus the exact contents of the complaints ar...
^^^^
Line 8, column 506, Rule ID: MAY_BE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'maybe' (=perhaps)?
Suggestion: maybe
...ssman while working with the channel or may be they found some other platform to adver...
^^^^^^
Line 8, column 561, 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.
...nd some other platform to advertise on. If these are the reasons then increasing t...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, may, regarding, so, then, thus, while, apart from
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2355.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 4.57281553398 5.12650576532 89% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.37299190548 2.78398813304 85% => OK
Unique words: 194.0 204.123752495 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.376699029126 0.468620217663 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 728.1 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.9979313966 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.125 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4583333333 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.25 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.448591849421 0.218282227539 206% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.147398299049 0.0743258471296 198% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.102254095897 0.0701772020484 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.251449506003 0.128457276422 196% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0878532286047 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 67.08 48.3550499002 139% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.23 12.5979740519 73% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 6.89 8.32208582834 83% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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.