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 pro-gram have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news pro-grams 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 discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument
The argument provided by the business manager in his memorandum is rife with holes and so arises the need for further unequivocal evidence to be provided in order for the argument and thus its conclusion to be deemed cogent.
Firstly, when the manager reports about the frequent complaints that were recently recieved by the the television station, what he mentions is the titles of the segments the complaints were related to and nothing more than that. If the grievances of viewers were related to the curtailed time period for local news and weather coverage, then this piece of information would surely bolster the argument. But what if the complaints addressed the credibility of the news sources which were quoted during those two news segments under consideration? This would then take the matter in an entirely opposite direction whereby it might be better to look into other more important matters, keeping the issue of the decreased allotted time aside.
In addition to this, the memorandum only points at the grave issue of cancellation of advertising contracts without trying to identify the cause behind it. Instead of arbitrarily linking this issue to the decrease in the devoted time period for local news and weather, it would be quite beneficial to investigate about the matter and dig deep to find out the actual reason leading to the cancellation of contracts. It might just be possible that the cause is what the business manager is pointing to, but when there is no sufficient evidence at hand, then this kind of an abstract relationship would hold no ground. For instance, what if the host of the late night news program was recently switched and the newly appointed host isn't able to grab the positive attention of the viewers, as a consquence of which the ratings for the program significantly went downhill. Such a trend might have compelled the advertising agencies to withdraw their contracts, if true.
If solid evidences were provided for the aforementioned claims through careful observation and investigation, it might have held much more of a ground.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
One more argument wanted:
Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news pro-grams 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: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 11 15
No. of Words: 345 350
No. of Characters: 1713 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.31 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.965 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.724 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.364 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.088 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.909 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.365 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.597 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.077 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 96, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...mplaints that were recently recieved by the the television station, what he mentions is...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 96, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...mplaints that were recently recieved by the the television station, what he mentions is...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 562, Rule ID: KIND_OF_A[1]
Message: Don't include 'an' after a classification term. Use simply 'kind of'.
Suggestion: kind of
... sufficient evidence at hand, then this kind of an abstract relationship would hold no gro...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 730, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...y switched and the newly appointed host isnt able to grab the positive attention of ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, if, look, so, then, thus, for instance, in addition, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1754.0 2260.96107784 78% => OK
No of words: 344.0 441.139720559 78% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.0988372093 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.30665032142 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7709329163 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.543604651163 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 540.9 705.55239521 77% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 11.0 19.7664670659 56% => 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: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 47.8453085863 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 159.454545455 119.503703932 133% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.2727272727 23.324526521 134% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.36363636364 5.70786347227 129% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => 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: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.227015618972 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0822954770626 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0702843645825 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107624510977 0.128457276422 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0880101576909 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.2 14.3799401198 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.3550499002 83% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.03 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 18.0 11.9071856287 151% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.