'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 manager states that increasing the time devolved to weather and local news will help the company, avoiding the loss of contracts and making more views, but there are some flaws and unbased assumptions that make impossible to accept the statement as it is.
First of all the author states that the time devoted to national news has increased and the time devoted to weather and local news has decreased in the last year. This may be true, but the problem is that it doesn't give us information of how much things have changed. It could be possible that a slot of 30 minutes of weather has been changed to national news, but such a modification of the schedule would be ridiculous and lead to no significative consequences. The first thing we need before we would agree with the manager is know exactly how much things have changed, in order to understand if this changes may be significative.
Moreover, we don't know the reasons behind this modification. Maybe the problem is that there are fewer local news, if that's the case it is not wrong to devote less time to less novities. So we will also need to know wether or not here has been a diminishing of these news.
Then the author says that most of the complaints regard the coverage of weather and local news. Of course this could be caused by the lessened time devoted to them, but it could also be because of the quality of such programs. Maybe the news selected are not interesting, or they fail to make people understand what actually is going to happen. Or maybe they don't involve some areas within the local news because they think they are out of range. There are many possibilities, so the author must tell us what are the exactly complaints that the program receives.
He also gives us an example of an advertising contract with a local business that has recently been canceled. The assumption is that the reason that led the end of this contract is the time devoted to local news, but there may be other reasons: maybe the business is losing money because there is too much cuncurrence and has decided to cut down all the expenses. The manager has to tell us why the contract has been canceled.
Even if we accept all the assumptions and take them for granted, there's still another problem: the author states that restoring the time devoted to weather and local news will solve everything, but how is he so sure about this? Restoring the initial schedule doesn't ensure anything, the viewers may not be so interested in local news and the other business that have an advertising contract may prefer if the program keeps giving more time to national news. The last thing the author has to give us is the reason that lead him to think that this operation will solve the problem.
In the end, it is not impossible for the manager to be right, but to convince everyone he first has to give some more informations: the significance of the changes, the reasons behind those changes, what are the complaints about, why did the local business canceled the contract and why he is so sure that restoring the previous schedule will solve the problem.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 557 350
No. of Characters: 2506 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.858 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.499 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.406 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.893 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.609 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.181 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 208, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...may be true, but the problem is that it doesnt give us information of how much things ...
^^^^^^
Line 2, column 242, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...at it doesnt give us information of how much things have changed. It could be possib...
^^^^
Line 2, column 530, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'known'.
Suggestion: known
...fore we would agree with the manager is know exactly how much things have changed, i...
^^^^
Line 2, column 547, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...ee with the manager is know exactly how much things have changed, in order to unders...
^^^^
Line 3, column 14, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ges may be significative. Moreover, we dont know the reasons behind this modificati...
^^^^
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
... is that there are fewer local news, if thats the case it is not wrong to devote less...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 261, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this news' or 'these newses'?
Suggestion: this news; these newses
...r or not here has been a diminishing of these news. Then the author says that most of the...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 359, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ually is going to happen. Or maybe they dont involve some areas within the local new...
^^^^
Line 6, column 66, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
... assumptions and take them for granted, theres still another problem: the author state...
^^^^^^
Line 6, column 259, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ut this? Restoring the initial schedule doesnt ensure anything, the viewers may not be...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 258, Rule ID: DID_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean 'cancel'?
Suggestion: cancel
...aints about, why did the local business canceled the contract and why he is so sure that...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, as to, of course, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2558.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 553.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.62567811935 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84932490483 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.4811299589 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.385171790235 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 799.2 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 75.7861959726 57.8364921388 131% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.9 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.65 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.7 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 11.0 5.25449101796 209% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.311731212245 0.218282227539 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.110578201465 0.0743258471296 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103769062932 0.0701772020484 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169988900132 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0618681394344 0.0628817314937 98% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 60.99 48.3550499002 126% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.87 12.5979740519 78% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.43 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.