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 argues that in order to attract more views to the program and to avoid losing further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. To buttress his or her claim, the manager cites the following evidences: first, most complaints received from viewers were concerned with station's coverage of weather and local news; second, local business canceled their advertising contracts with us. Tough the issue has its own merit, without complete evidences and explanations regarding the evidences provided, the conclusion in the memo is unsubstantiated.
To begin with, further details of the complaints received are needed to fully evaluate the argument. How many complaints did the television station receive? What were the contents of those complaints? If, for example, the number of complaints received after the change has decreased dramatically, then it is a good idea to insist on current strategy. Where did the complaints come from? If one person wrote several complaints in order to express his dissatisfication, then his opinion cannot represent all other audiences. Whether the station received some acclaims from the public about less coverage of weather and local news? If so, at least some people are pleasant with the change. Without providing detailed information about the complaints to us, we are unable to wholely investigate of the pros and cons of such decision.
Furthermore, the author unfairly attributes the effect of cancelling advertising contracts to the change of coverage in the station. While this cause might be one that affects local business's determination, many other causes remain unexamined. It is plausible that the local business is facing buget deficit currently, so that it decides to reduce the advertisement distribution in the total expenditure. In addition, the local business may find late-night news program not suitable for their business, but rather would like to attract more consumers in the daily program. Or they prefer advertising on other platforms, such as Internet or APPs. In this case, the change of coverage of television programs might affect little on local business's advertising plan. The author should offer the core reasons behind the decision of local business.
Last but not least, the business manager of the television station assumes that storing the time devoted to weather and local news would attract more viewers to the program. The assumption might seem valid at first glance, it is fallacious after further exploration. That people decrease spending time on television might have nothing to do whether the local news or the national news offered. Instead, they start to read news from Internet, on which they are able to obtain the most updated news and can easily comment under every news. Therefore, changing the content of station perhaps is not a good idea; rather the manager should focus on more how to convert people's attention or even habits from Internet to television. Additionally, the author fails to provide the evidence about the change in audience before and after the coverage of national news. It is likely that most people are attracted by the national news instead of weather and local news, so that reducing the coverage of national news would further decrease the potential audiences.
To sum up, as it stands, the author's conclusion is relied on incomplete information and biased interpretation that weaken the credibility of the memo. To strengthen the argument, the author is advised to provide the evidences as follows: first, the detailed information of the complaints received; second, whether the change of coverage of television station is the main reason behind the concelling of the advertisement contracts; third, whether store the time devoted to weather and local news to normal level plays an essential role in attracting viewers and advertising revenues.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 627 350
No. of Characters: 3268 1500
No. of Different Words: 274 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.004 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.212 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.735 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 255 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 203 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 135 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.393 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.872 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.607 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.478 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 30, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...iences. To sum up, as it stands, the authors conclusion is relied on incomplete info...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, third, while, at least, for example, in addition, such as, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 95.0 55.5748502994 171% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3346.0 2260.96107784 148% => OK
No of words: 627.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.336523126 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.00399520894 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81156022881 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 293.0 204.123752495 144% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467304625199 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 1040.4 705.55239521 147% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.1123919202 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.925925926 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2222222222 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.81481481481 5.70786347227 102% => 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: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.35553092389 0.218282227539 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0961253860359 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106984554062 0.0701772020484 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.203517332866 0.128457276422 158% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.114671214625 0.0628817314937 182% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.55 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 150.0 98.500998004 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 12.3882235529 157% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.