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.
While the argument cited a memorandum provided by a business manager of a television station where the station is facing some issues related to its shows broadcasting and loosing contracts. This author's argument is rife with many unwarranted assumptions, thus to draw any conclusion would be very hard that the station should restore its broadcasting timing to its former level.
First of all, there is lack of available evidence on the past year data related to the timing devoted for national ,local and weather news. The author never stated anywhere that the timing for telecasting the shows was really changed in the past year. Memorandum has not been clearly represented to make any final decision by the television station on its time table.
The argument is hanging around the second assumption that last year the viewers made complaints regarding the coverage of weather and local news. Here, the author never satisfied its reader as most importantly the sample size of the complaints and viewers is not mentioned. For instance the received complaints could be from a few viewers who have the concerns related to the local and weather news as they don't want to watch national news. Insufficiently, the provided details are not enough to incorporate that all the viewer of television station were facing the same issue. To strengthen the argument, the detailed data of viewers, complaints and show timings should have been provided.
Additionally, the argument took into consideration its third assumption that local businesses were cancelling the contracts. Mainly, the argument doesn't provide any evidence of true reason of cancellation of the contracts by the local businesses. May be they are facing other issues like cost expenditure, contractual term and conditions issues, good deal with other television station and many more. The argument also doesn't make any strong point by providing the sample of cancelled contracts. moreover, the local businesses were advertising them during late-night news programs and station never avoided their advertisement, they just shifted them at different time. To strengthen the argument, the author could be benefited by providing strong evidence on reasons and sample size of cancelled contracts.
Furthermore, the argument is taking into consideration an assumption that by reversing the timing for the shows can surely increase the viewers and helps them to gain the local business's advertising contracts. There is no correlation between the show timings and the viewers as if any viewer really like a show, they could wait for that and decision of the local contractors.
Therefore, the argument is not strongly standing on its provided details, and it is likely hard to convince by the author to conclude that reversing the show timing can help the station to gain its viewers and contracts back. The argument should provide strong evidence through memorandum to make any final decision by the station.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 474 350
No. of Characters: 2447 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.666 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.162 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.741 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 184 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.947 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.097 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.363 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.607 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 115, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...lated to the timing devoted for national ,local and weather news. The author never...
^^
Line 9, column 408, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...d to the local and weather news as they dont want to watch national news. Insufficie...
^^^^
Line 13, column 147, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ing the contracts. Mainly, the argument doesnt provide any evidence of true reason of ...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 248, Rule ID: MAY_BE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'maybe' (=perhaps)?
Suggestion: Maybe
... the contracts by the local businesses. May be they are facing other issues like cost ...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 420, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...tation and many more. The argument also doesnt make any strong point by providing the ...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 497, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Moreover
...ding the sample of cancelled contracts. moreover, the local businesses were advertising ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, if, may, moreover, really, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, while, for instance, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 33.0 16.3942115768 201% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2516.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 471.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34182590234 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65859790218 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80021777943 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445859872611 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 761.4 705.55239521 108% => 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: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 35.1995738611 57.8364921388 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.8 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.55 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.95 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.262951158977 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0877882357738 0.0743258471296 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0782884398105 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147800844397 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0781706889615 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 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: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.96 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.