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 compl aintsreceived from viewers w ere 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 theprogram 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.
In order to evaluate the argument presented in the memorandum, several pieces of information are needed. Firstly, one needs to evaluate the importance of national news compared to that of local news and weather. Another piece of evidence required is simply the number of complaints recieved regarding the lack of weather and local news coverage. Similarly, data is required on the amount of sponsorship already lost and also what remaining sponsorship could be lost in the future. Therefore before any decision is made, these pieces of evidence should be evaluated against the buisness manager's argument.
One way of evaulating the importance of national news compared to the weather and local news could simply be a survey of viewers. This would give the station a better idea of what areas to concentrate more air-time on. Surveys could even be done throughout the year as preferences may change based on the season or surrounding major current events like local and national elections. Based on how viewers respond to the survey at the time, the buisness manager's argument could be either strengthened or weakened.
Another piece of evidence that would be useful is the number of complaints about the increased air-time of national news. As the buisness manager says, most complaints may have been regarding the lack of local news and weather, however if this number of complaints is relatively low compared to the total estimated viewing audience then this would weaken the argument since only a few complaints can not overrule the silent majority.
About the question of local buisness sponsorships, data is required regarding the number of contracts cancelled, and the dollar amount of sponsorship lost. The same data is also required for the buisnesses still honoring their contracts. If only a few buisnesses have cancelled their contracts and the dollar amount of their sponsorships was relatively little, it may be more condusive to leave them be and instead pursue advertisers that are more interested in the station airing national news topics. This would weaken the manager's argument. On the other hand, if a significant amount of sponsorship was lost, this would strengthen the manager's argument. However either way it would be beneficial to gauge the interest of advertisers for whom national news is more appealing since this should also influence the decision of what news should be aired.
Therefore, in order to evaluate the manager's argument and make a decision, a few pieces of evidence are required. A survey of active viewers would tell the station what the audience really wants to see. An analysis of the complaints recieved would also indicate if the number of complaints recieved is actually significant enough to take into account. Finally, an analysis of the advertisement situation would signal whether the sponsorship lost is significant enough to justify airing more local news and weather. Another helpful peice of information in this area would be the interest of advertisers who are more interested in stations that air national news. All these pieces of evidence are required to assertain the validity of the argument made by the manager.
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 512 350
No. of Characters: 2626 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.757 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.129 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.728 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 205 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 159 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.261 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.213 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 482, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
...ponsorship could be lost in the future. Therefore before any decision is made, these piec...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 526, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...onal news topics. This would weaken the managers argument. On the other hand, if a signi...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 639, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...hip was lost, this would strengthen the managers argument. However either way it would b...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 658, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...would strengthen the managers argument. However either way it would be beneficial to ga...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 37, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
... Therefore, in order to evaluate the managers argument and make a decision, a few pie...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, really, regarding, similarly, so, still, then, therefore, as to, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2675.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 512.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.224609375 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75682846001 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77046977553 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.404296875 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 852.3 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => 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: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.6854818832 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.304347826 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2608695652 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.13043478261 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.226981570072 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0783997538916 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0688038799596 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.153789161658 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0439051337202 0.0628817314937 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => 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: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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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.