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 argument has made several assumption while coming to the conclusion that the time devoted to weather and local news be increased to its former level. These assumption have thus flawed the conclusion as there could be many other interpretations that could be made.
While stating that the news program has devoted more time to national news and lesser time to weather and local news, it doesn't mention how much time these segments are taking up in the program. There could be a possibility that earlier the local news and weather took up 80% of the time of the program and the national news took the rest. After the reformation, the local news and weather might still be taking up 60% of the time while the rest 40% is taken up national news. Therefore, the time devoted to the former is still much more than the latter. It would have been beneficial to know the amount of actual time that was spent for these two segments before and after the reformation.
The argument mention complaints regarding the coverage of the weather and local news. However, the argument fails to clarify the sort of complaints that they received regarding the coverage. The complaints could very well have been about the information during the coverage or its quality. The business manager has conveniently assumend that the complaints about the coverage were because of the reduced time. The argument could have given more details about the nature of the complaints received and whether these could be correlated to the decrease in coverage of the local news and weather.
The memorandum from the business manager also mentions that the local businesses who advertised during the program have left since the changes took place. Again, it doesn't give us a background about how the relation between the station and the local businesses was before the changes had taken place. If there was a strained relation between them even before the changes were made, making any changes to the show would have not made an iota of difference if the businesses had already decided to abandon the station. Assuming that giving the local news and weather the same amount of coverage as before would attract the businesses again is trying to be over optimistic. Had the memorandum mentioned the relations between the two parties before the changes, it could have been easier to assert the reason for the departureof the businesses.
Having made several flawed assumptions while coming to the conclusion, the chances of revival of the news station to its former self are very dim.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
one argument missed:
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.
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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: 18 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2082 1500
No. of Different Words: 168 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.819 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.43 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.88 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.383 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.633 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.193 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 23, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun assumption seems to be countable; consider using: 'several assumptions'.
Suggestion: several assumptions
The argument has made several assumption while coming to the conclusion that the...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 155, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this assumption' or 'These assumptions'?
Suggestion: This assumption; These assumptions
... news be increased to its former level. These assumption have thus flawed the conclusion as ther...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 122, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...sser time to weather and local news, it doesnt mention how much time these segments ar...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 411, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...erage were because of the reduced time. The argument could have given more details ...
^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...rage of the local news and weather. The memorandum from the business manager al...
^^^
Line 7, column 166, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...since the changes took place. Again, it doesnt give us a background about how the rela...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 148, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tation to its former self are very dim.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, regarding, so, still, therefore, thus, well, while, sort of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2129.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 430.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9511627907 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55372829156 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46815192641 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 173.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.402325581395 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 667.8 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
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: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 35.8286818686 57.8364921388 62% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.277777778 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8888888889 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.33333333333 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.322125821945 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119604511898 0.0743258471296 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103350566491 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168088959526 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0949608090989 0.0628817314937 151% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => 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: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.