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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The given argument seems to be a little obscured with respect to the memorandum that it tries to present. It tries to mention a problem with no related evidence reports, numbers or percentages bolstering it. Also, the solution offered is on some arbitrary ground instead of having any insights or validation for the same.
The first sentence mentions that the television station has increased its time to national news, but fails to mention any numbers or percentages as it tries to compare it with previous years. The next line mentions that it has received complaints for increasing its time towards national news and decreasing coverage of weather and local news. This is somewhat obscured and fails to mention the number of viewers who watch television at night versus the number of reviews it received. There might be high possibility that as compared to reviews received, the number of viewers are much more less. Hence, more insight is required to evaluate that a majority of viewers are complaining the same issue as faced by others.
The memorandum reveal that local businesses have canceled their contracts with station. This might be due to some other stations offering such businesses at a much lower rate as compared to the current one. Hence, associating it with the negative reviews or late night programs would be completely unethical.
Although, there might be some chances that viewers at night are typically interested in local news and weather reports at night, which might support the manager's main cause. But completely being dependent on such factors for the success of your business might be irrelevant and some more information regarding the same such as surveys, reviews, reports, etc. might be required.
The last sentence states that restoring the time to weather and local news might increase their customers and contractors. Such an evaluation might not only hamper success but would lead to further decline of business. As there might be possibility that old viewers have probably stopped watching late night news program, which might be an important insight for the television station to further decide its way to success. Also, apart from news, other factors such as advertising, quality, etc. might be some of the factors contributing to decline in business, which must be inspected accordingly before any decision is made.
Hence, the above argument seems to be unclear with respect to the information it presents and completely vague with respect to the decision it takes for a successful future. Some more insight are required for the decision to be validated as true.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 425 350
No. of Characters: 2140 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.54 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.035 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.592 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.368 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.69 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.474 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.599 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 274, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d is on some arbitrary ground instead of having any insights or validation for th...
^^
Line 5, column 320, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...national news and decreasing coverage of weather and local news. This is somewhat...
^^
Line 5, column 588, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'less' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: less
...eceived, the number of viewers are much more less. Hence, more insight is required to eva...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 16, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'reveals'.
Suggestion: reveals
...as faced by others. The memorandum reveal that local businesses have canceled the...
^^^^^^
Line 17, column 505, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
... as advertising, quality, etc. might be some of the factors contributing to decline in busi...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, first, hence, regarding, so, apart from, such as, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2206.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 425.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19058823529 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54043259262 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63857358969 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.465882352941 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 676.8 705.55239521 96% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.1215595615 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.047619048 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2380952381 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.2380952381 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.210326868994 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0710593451963 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0877407657799 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105952539421 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0831233089687 0.0628817314937 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.