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 is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memorandum stated above, the author concluded that the paucity of local news and weather update affects badly on the number of audience of the late-night news program. However, to evaluate the argument properly, three questions need to be answered.
First of all, who are the major portion of the audience of the news program? If the majority of the viewers are generally aware of local news, then they will naturally be inclined to listening to national issues in the program. on the contrary, if majority of the viewers or listeners are from labor community, they might be in need of concentrating more on the local news rather than national affairs. For instance, if a driver who drives a truck containing vegetables would be more keen to listen about the current weather update in order to make decisions regarding driving on that particular night. The lack of clarity about the type of audience makes the conclusion of the memorandum ambiguous.
Secondly, does the cancelled advertisement contract have any correlation with broadcasting local news and weather update? Normally those who advertises through late-night news programs typically advertises for a wide range of products. however, it is very important to know about the dependency of the advertised product on weather and local news. For example, if an umbrella company posts advertisement about their recently improved umbrellas in the time of heavy rainfall, it will be beneficial only for the time when there is actually heavy rainfall and this is directly contingent upon the fact that the late-night news actually broadcasts weather update. Otherwise, the argument will not hold true.
Lastly, there is no clear indication about the local conditions which are more important news than any national issues. Sometimes, a local event is far more important in terms of news than a national event. The argument fails to provide any instance upon which the relative importance of the local and national news can be evaluated.
From the above discussions we can infer that, if the author answer the above mentioned questions properly with more convincing evidences, the conclusion of the argument can be properly evaluated.
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: 14 15
No. of Words: 354 350
No. of Characters: 1803 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.338 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.093 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.7 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.703 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.376 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.615 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 14, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...need to be answered. First of all, who are the major portion of the audienc...
^^
Line 5, column 230, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: On
...ning to national issues in the program. on the contrary, if majority of the viewer...
^^
Line 9, column 78, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ement contract have any correlation with broadcasting local news and weather upda...
^^
Line 9, column 239, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: However
...dvertises for a wide range of products. however, it is very important to know about the...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, however, if, lastly, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, for example, for instance, first of all, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1860.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 354.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.25423728814 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33761313653 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77483389601 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.502824858757 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 591.3 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.3818883972 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.25 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.125 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.3125 5.70786347227 146% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.290569713707 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101022278475 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0684535805662 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154083839844 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0761251842749 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.