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 manager of the television station argues that they should expand their coverage of weather and local news in order to attract more viewers and avoiding losing more advertising business. However, the argument is not convincing since it is supported by a couple of assumptions which are groundless.
First, the manager argues that the majority of the complaints are about their stations’ coverage of weather and local news. So, in order to maintain more viewers with their station, they need to cover more weather and local news. The assumption here is the manager regards the opinion of these who complains as that of the general viewers. However, the viewers who complain may only cover a very small percentage. In other words, the majority of the viewers are happy about the national news and do not complain. If this is the case, reforming current program by covering more local news and weather would trigger more complaints and decrease the current viewers. This would be the opposite as what the manager desires and argues.
Second, the manager argues that local businesses have discontinued posting advertisement during their late-night program. Therefore, in order to stop losing more local businesses, they should expand their station’s coverage of weather and local news. (explain how the argument depends on these assumptions). The assumption here is that the manager assumes that the decrease of weather and local news is the reason for the local businesses to stop working with them. In fact, there are many other possible reasons for the local businesses to do so. For example, the local businesses may realize advertising during the day-time programs is more favorable, and they have decided to discontinue to advertise during any late-night programs, not only with this television station. If so, adding the coverage of weather and local news would not help stop losing more local business.
In conclusion, the manager’s argument is based on a couple of unwarranted assumptions. Consequently, the argument is not convincing.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not really. you:
However, the viewers who complain may only cover a very small percentage. In other words, the majority of the viewers are happy about the national news and do not complain. //maybe people complain but don't send complaints to the station.
suggested:
1. maybe less complaints compared to previous years
2. need to know the content of the complaints
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- you don't have. Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
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>. //the argument point is: on all our news programs.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 328 350
No. of Characters: 1675 1500
No. of Different Words: 131 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.256 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.107 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.593 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.294 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.036 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.388 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.561 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.127 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 257, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Explain
...s;s coverage of weather and local news. explain how the argument depends on these assum...
^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['consequently', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'second', 'so', 'therefore', 'for example', 'in conclusion', 'in fact', 'in other words']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.24064171123 0.25644967241 94% => OK
Verbs: 0.155080213904 0.15541462614 100% => OK
Adjectives: 0.096256684492 0.0836205057962 115% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0534759358289 0.0520304965353 103% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0294117647059 0.0272364105082 108% => OK
Prepositions: 0.114973262032 0.125424944231 92% => OK
Participles: 0.0374331550802 0.0416121511921 90% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.79233009807 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0213903743316 0.026700313972 80% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.109625668449 0.113004496875 97% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0187165775401 0.0255425247493 73% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0133689839572 0.0127820249294 105% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2073.0 2731.13054187 76% => OK
No of words: 328.0 446.07635468 74% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.32012195122 6.12365571057 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.25567506705 4.57801047555 93% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.384146341463 0.378187486979 102% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.326219512195 0.287650121315 113% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.213414634146 0.208842608468 102% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.125 0.135150697306 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79233009807 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Unique words: 138.0 207.018472906 67% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.420731707317 0.469332199767 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 41.5917753933 52.1807786196 80% => OK
How many sentences: 18.0 20.039408867 90% => OK
Sentence length: 18.2222222222 23.2022227129 79% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.5884126563 57.7814097925 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.166666667 141.986410481 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2222222222 23.2022227129 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.666666666667 0.724660767414 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.14285714286 78% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 3.58251231527 28% => OK
Readability: 50.8441734417 51.9672348444 98% => OK
Elegance: 1.65168539326 1.8405768891 90% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.555678675342 0.441005458295 126% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.116041350762 0.135418324435 86% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0571869930214 0.0829849096947 69% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.564855941175 0.58762219726 96% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.150767266091 0.147661913831 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.239742259326 0.193483328276 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103008408182 0.0970749176394 106% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.479191607365 0.42659136922 112% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.144098566027 0.0774707102158 186% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.389838082465 0.312017818177 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.113843183128 0.0698173142475 163% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.33743842365 36% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.87684729064 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 3.0 6.46551724138 46% => OK
Negative topic words: 12.0 5.36822660099 224% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 17.0 14.657635468 116% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.