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.
In the memorandum from the business manager of a television station, the manager claims that to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing further advertising revenues, more time should be devoted to weather and local news. The author has however based his recommendation on numerous fallacious assumptions and failed to support his claim with cogent evidence.
In the first place, the author states no reason to justify why the program schedule had been changed over the year to increase time to national news and less time to weather and local news. Is it because people preferred listening to national news during the late-night news program? If so be the case, has the preference of people changed in one year? The author does not cite any survey which supports such an assumption. The author states that people complained about the station’s “coverage of weather and local news”, however he fails to mention the type of complains received. Did people complain specifically about the excess of national news during the night slot and decreased volume of news covering weather and local news? Or were the complains against the quality and authenticity of the news being casted? Is it possible that the audience is complaining against the news anchor? If the complains received are based on the points raised above the author’s argument will be weakened. To strengthen his claim, the author should provide unbiased and cogent answers to the questions raised above. Otherwise, it would be erroneous to assume that the decreasing popularity of the television station is due to the new news schedule.
Also, the author has assumed that the only reason for the decrease in popularity of the station with audience and businessmen is due to the late-night news show. What about the other shows telecasted during different times? It is possible that the quality of the shows being telecasted during different time of the days has deteriorated. New stations are broadcasting more popular and interesting shows. Unless the author negates these possible reasons for the declining popularity of the station, it would be dubious to conclude that the changed pattern of the late-night news show is the only reason for the decrease in popularity of the channel.
Lastly, the author also suggested fallaciously that since the schedule of the news has changed, local business advertisements have also declined. The decrease in advertisement could be related to the loss in popularity of the channel but there are several other independent reasons which the author has not considered. For example, the local business could have shut down due to declining economy, the cost for advertising in the station could have increased, new station could offer advertising at lower costs, or the popularity of other stations might have increased leading to the cancelling of contracts. Unless the author gives specific evidence which supports that none of these events are responsible for the decline, it would be erroneous to assume that the loss of advertising from local business id solely due to the changed pattern of news casting.
To conclude, although the reasoning seems correct at first glance, a proper scrutiny of the recommendation shows that the author’s assumptions are flawed and based on certain assumptions without enough evidence to bolster his claim. On the contrary, the questions raised are likely to weaken his disposition. Under such circumstances, the author should reconsider his recommendation and include details pertaining to points raised above to strengthen his claim.
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'lastly', 'so', 'then', 'for example', 'on the contrary', 'in the first place']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.256651017214 0.25644967241 100% => OK
Verbs: 0.170579029734 0.15541462614 110% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0954616588419 0.0836205057962 114% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0203442879499 0.0520304965353 39% => Some adverbs wanted.
Pronouns: 0.0219092331768 0.0272364105082 80% => OK
Prepositions: 0.123630672926 0.125424944231 99% => OK
Participles: 0.0641627543036 0.0416121511921 154% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.85648898492 2.79052419416 102% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0422535211268 0.026700313972 158% => OK
Particles: 0.00156494522692 0.001811407834 86% => OK
Determiners: 0.120500782473 0.113004496875 107% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.018779342723 0.0255425247493 74% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00782472613459 0.0127820249294 61% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3621.0 2731.13054187 133% => OK
No of words: 576.0 446.07635468 129% => OK
Chars per words: 6.28645833333 6.12365571057 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89897948557 4.57801047555 107% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.414930555556 0.378187486979 110% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.310763888889 0.287650121315 108% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.217013888889 0.208842608468 104% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.142361111111 0.135150697306 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85648898492 2.79052419416 102% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 207.018472906 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.423611111111 0.469332199767 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 50.1458039702 52.1807786196 96% => OK
How many sentences: 25.0 20.039408867 125% => OK
Sentence length: 23.04 23.2022227129 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.6451064437 57.7814097925 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.84 141.986410481 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.04 23.2022227129 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.44 0.724660767414 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 54.1163888889 51.9672348444 104% => OK
Elegance: 2.08823529412 1.8405768891 113% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.621023464981 0.441005458295 141% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.150002343517 0.135418324435 111% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0925432451769 0.0829849096947 112% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.613212105212 0.58762219726 104% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.171715499693 0.147661913831 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.277532878425 0.193483328276 143% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.128550362458 0.0970749176394 132% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.576243228298 0.42659136922 135% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.131678530453 0.0774707102158 170% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.445687338051 0.312017818177 143% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.122800443506 0.0698173142475 176% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.33743842365 144% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.87684729064 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.82512315271 104% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 6.46551724138 170% => OK
Negative topic words: 8.0 5.36822660099 149% => OK
Neutral topic words: 4.0 2.82389162562 142% => OK
Total topic words: 23.0 14.657635468 157% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
---------------------
Note: This is not the final score. 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.