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 business manager here makes a recommendation to restore the time that was devoted to the local news and weather to what it was before. The motive of this recomendation is to mitigate the complaints recieved from the viewers and to retain the current advertising revenue. The recommendation could be a step in the right direction, but the manager has not provided us with enough evidence to support his arguments.
First of all, the base on which the recommendation is built on is that most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with coverage of weather and the local news on the station. He does not elaborate on the emotion or nature of the complaints. It could be a complaint asking to increase more coverage or it could be a complaint bashful about the quality of the current coverage or it could even be suggesting that more time needs to be devoted to national news or any other events which might be of higher priority. If the nature of the complaint is suggesting an increase of time devoted to the local and weather news, then this evidence would strenghten the manager's argument to restore the time devoted to its former level. On the contrary, if the nature of the complaints are bashful of the quality of the local news that is provided on the station, then the manager should focus on improving the content and quality of the news reported first and then turn his attention to devoting more time which significantly weakens the manager's argument. Also, if the complaints are suggesting to reduce the time already spent on local news, then again this evidence would weaken the argument.
The next leg his argument stands on is that the local business advertisers have cancelled their advertising contracts with the station. This does not offer any insight into why the advertisers had cancelled their contracts. This could be because of many reasons. The pricing of advertising contracts might have been very high by this station whereas new competitors could have offered them much better rebates. They could have cancelled the contracts for that reason which drastically weakens his argument.
The advertisers could also have cancelled their contracts due to a change in startegy rather than the station's loss of viewers. Nowadays, digital non-personal promotion is making waves in the industry. The advertisers could have focused on advertising their products on internet blogs or even go the old fashioned way of advertising in local newspapers. There is no evidence as to why the local business cancelled the contracts. In either of these cases, the argument made by the manager attenuates.
The argument is strengthened only if we can assure that the loss of contracts is due to lesser viewers.
Finally, he only says about the complaints received in this time period. There could be positive reactions on the change in the time allotted to the national news. More number of views might appreciate the importance given to national news. In this case, the argument made by the manager if executed would have a detrimental effect on the number of viewers.
Hence, due to the lack of evidence provided in this argument, the station cannot make an informed decision. It would support his argument, if he could shed light on the claims that he has made and support them with the whole picture rather than giving out only his thought.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 26 15
No. of Words: 568 350
No. of Characters: 2756 1500
No. of Different Words: 223 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.882 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.852 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.642 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 191 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 159 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.846 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.36 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 276, 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.
...retain the current advertising revenue. The recommendation could be a step in the r...
^^^
Line 5, column 674, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...then this evidence would strenghten the managers argument to restore the time devoted to...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1044, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...re time which significantly weakens the managers argument. Also, if the complaints are s...
^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 103, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...to a change in startegy rather than the stations loss of viewers. Nowadays, digital non-...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, if, so, then, whereas, as to, first of all, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 29.0 16.3942115768 177% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2823.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 568.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 4.97007042254 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88187981987 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70143119198 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.392605633803 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 879.3 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.1326793911 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.576923077 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8461538462 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.57692307692 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => 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: 0.256771965642 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0801044476482 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0830326840578 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119074646042 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.105408174257 0.0628817314937 168% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.46 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.