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 television sation has arrived at the conclusion that restoring their coverage time for weather and local news will lead to increased viewership of thier late-night news program. They also believe that decreased viewrship due to this change in coverage has led to local businesses cancelling their advertising contracts. However, the television station has failed to conduct a thorough evaluation of the circumstances to reach its conclusion.
The manager has mentioned that reducing the coverage time of weather and local news has led to complaints from viewers. However, the manager does not address the question whether these complaints were due to less time devoted to these areas or due to lack of quality of the weather reports and local news. The television station has to look into the nature of these complaints prior to concluding that restoring coverage time is the solution.
The reason for reduced viewership may also be because the viewers simply prefer coverage of all kinds of news including sports and entertainment. There is also the possibility that viewers prefer a different news station all together because of the content of their late-night programs combined with quality and advertising options. The manager believes that restoring weather and local news coverage will lead to attracting more customers. However, it provides no grounds for this argument. It could be possible that the television station might regain its lost customers or simply retain its current viewers.
In order to evaluate the circumstances adequately, the television station should introduce a customer survey or feedback system in order to understand what the viewers prefer in their late night news program. The data collected in this manner will help them understand if simply restoring coverage time will satisfy its viewers and bring in more viewers or the TV channel should take other measures like altering the content of its late-night news program to match the tastes of its audience in order to attract viewership.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 321 350
No. of Characters: 1686 1500
No. of Different Words: 149 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.233 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.252 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.692 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.462 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.398 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.599 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 159, Rule ID: WHETHER[5]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "the question"?
Suggestion: whether
.... However, the manager does not address the question whether these complaints were due to less time ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, look, may, so, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 5.0 19.6327345309 25% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1717.0 2260.96107784 76% => OK
No of words: 321.0 441.139720559 73% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34890965732 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23278547379 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74121706881 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 152.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.473520249221 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 522.9 705.55239521 74% => 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: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.0376738837 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.076923077 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6923076923 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.0 5.70786347227 53% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.341064044447 0.218282227539 156% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.133953206104 0.0743258471296 180% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0881123676359 0.0701772020484 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.226902342228 0.128457276422 177% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0492860134215 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.05 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.