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 complaint

Essay topics:

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

The business manager of a television station assumes that the coverage of weather and local news should be increased on all their programs in order to attract the audience to watch their television. Furthermore, this would attract local businesses to advertise again with their television. To support his recommendation, the manager states that the viewers complained about the decline in their station’s coverage of weather and local news. Furthermore, this resulted in canceling the advertising contracts by the local business who used to advertise during the late-night news program. However, the manager has made few assumptions that the reader should be looking further deep into them before coming into a conclusion to the argument.

Firstly, the business manager assumes that the viewers complained about the decrease in the amount of weather and local news included in their television station programs in general, and not exactly in the late-night news program. It could be possible that these viewers’ complaints are not concerned with their coverage of weather and local news in the late-night news program, but in some other daily programs, for example. Maybe the viewers do not even follow the late-night programs and they do not know about the changes that the television has made in their late-night news program. To discover which programs are the viewers’ complaints concerned about, the television manager should conduct a survey. The evidence acquired with the survey would help to the manager to have a closer insight in the real situation. Finally, he will know if the viewers’ complaints are with regards to the whole television program or exclusively to the late-night news program. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the manager’s conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.

Secondly, the author of this argument argues that the local businesses who used to advertise with his television during its late-night news program, have canceled their advertising contracts with the television. Similarly to the viewers, also local businesses might not be informed about the changes made in the late-night program or this fact might not be important for them. In contrast, they might have as a reason for this cancellation a potential financial crisis in their companies and; thus, they cannot devote money for advertising anymore. Maybe they have decided to invest the limited money they have, in growing their business, instead of in advertising. If this is true, then the author’s argument does not hold water.

Lastly, the television manager indicates that including more weather and local news in their television’s news program would attract more viewers. It could be possible that there is a new television station which is more advanced and interesting and; therefore, currently more popular. In this case, the business manager’s television could be able to attract more viewers and local business who would advertise with them, by introducing new, fresh and interesting programs. This would make this television competitive to the new television station and even, possibly more popular.

In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. The business manager should provide more evidence about the exact programs the viewers complain about and the reasons for the cancellation of their advertising contracts considering the potential financial crisis in the local businesses. Further, he should consider the possibility of opening the new television station which could be more popular than his television station. If the author of this argument is able to provide more evidence about all his assumptions, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the reliability of his argument.

Votes
Average: 5.5 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 212, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Similarly,
...ertising contracts with the television. Similarly to the viewers, also local businesses m...
^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, therefore, thus, for example, in conclusion, in contrast, in general

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3268.0 2260.96107784 145% => OK
No of words: 597.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 5.47403685092 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94303383012 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96155172443 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.378559463987 0.468620217663 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1013.4 705.55239521 144% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.8313604966 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.72 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.88 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.52 5.70786347227 132% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.308388111252 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114372716159 0.0743258471296 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0941502062556 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198722870827 0.128457276422 155% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0836361754663 0.0628817314937 133% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.74 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => 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
---------------------
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.

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: 25 15
No. of Words: 597 350
No. of Characters: 3158 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.943 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.29 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.741 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 239 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 210 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 137 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 88 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.88 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.495 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.356 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5