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."
The author claims here that late night news should devote much more time to weather and local news than national news. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. To justify this recommendation, the author reasons that late complaints received from the viewers at late night was related to not covering weather and local news. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s recommendation. Hence the argument can be considered incomplete or unsubstantiated.
First of all, the argument readily assumes that all the complaints received at the television station at late-night was related to the lack of coverage of weather and local news. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground.
For example, what if some viewers were not able to properly view the broadcast from the television station at late-night? Hence the argument would have been much more convincing if it explicitly stated that what number or percentage of complaints were related to the coverage of national news and the lack of weather and local news.
The author also points out that local businesses that usually advertised their products have cancelled their advertising contracts. This again is a weak and unsupported claim as it does not demonstrate any clear correlation between the cancellation of contracts with the lack of weather and local news coverage. To illustrate further, what if the local businesses are going through a recession which forced them to cut the advertising cost? What if the advertisements of products in the late-night news have low impact on their respective sales achieved by the local businesses? What if the local businesses have found other television stations where they can advertise their products cheaply than this television station? If the argument had provided evidence that the local businesses have cancelled the advertising contracts because of the absence of weather and local news in late-night news program then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the author notes that to increase the advertising revenues and to attract more viewers, weather and local news should be restored to their former level of devoted time slot. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion in several critical respects, and raises several skeptical questions. For example, What if the weather and local news have no impact on the loss of advertising revenues? What if the local business have quit the contract with the television stations and found cheaper alternative to advertise their products such as flyers, billboards etc? What if the complaints received at the late-night news period were for technical issues faced by viewers? Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must provide clear and more concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a reliable survey from the viewers and from the local businesses authorities about their views on the absence of weather and local news from late-night news program. Finally, to better evaluate the argument, it would be necessary to know more information about why the viewers were complaining and the reasons behind the cancellation of advertising contracts.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 572 350
No. of Characters: 2973 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.89 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.198 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.728 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 222 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 188 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 124 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.87 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.589 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.365 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.536 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 529, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...t for the author's recommendation. Hence the argument can be considered incomple...
^^^^^
Line 4, column 123, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...m the television station at late-night? Hence the argument would have been much more ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, so, then, for example, in conclusion, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3051.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 572.0 441.139720559 130% => OK
Chars per words: 5.33391608392 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89045207381 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84625854604 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.409090909091 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 932.4 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.403884824 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.125 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8333333333 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.20833333333 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.336062455046 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.113057794236 0.0743258471296 152% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103310764713 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.20902483402 0.128457276422 163% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0403336857071 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.93 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => 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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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.