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 letter adduces that the television station should return to give more attention to weather and local news in order to address their spectors complaints and to maintain their current sponsors. The evidences provided in the memorandum, however, are flimsy as they could be easily undermined by possible alternative explanations.
The letter starts by claiming that the majority of their spectors are carping the coverage of weather an local news. It is not explained, on the other hand, what is the subject of complaning regarding this matter, that is, people could be not enjoying the reporter, the edition or even the credibility of the news. If local news presented are not germane, poeple may be frustrated and start to complain about it. Moreover, the letter does not mention how relevant is the number of complaints about this issue. In numbers, is it really substancial to be taken for granted?
Second, the author says that local sponsors of the late-night news program are resigning their advertising contracts with the station. Other than lack of coverage of weather and local news, there are other plausible explanations for this evasion: advertising prices have become more expensive in the station, other stations are getting more audience, a local crisis is affecting the local companies and forcing them to diminish the number of commercial advertisements in television.
Last, the manager suggests that the station should return to give more attention to weather and local news as it did in the past. However, in order to that conclusion to be strong, he should have provided figures comparing the revenues and popularity of the station in the past compared to its current reputation and economic situation.
To sum up, the conclusion that the station is loosing revenues and is being criticized because it is devoting less time to weather and local news is feeble based on the evidences provided. In order to strength his point, the author should have provided details about the contents of complaints and their relevance in numbers, furthermore, he should also have delineated if the economic situation of the region, the station audience and advertising prices are preserved. Finally, the financial conditions of the station prior to decrease the weather and local news time should also have been provided.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: The letter adduces that the television station should return to give more attention to weather and local news in order to address their spectors complaints and to maintain their current sponsors.
Error: spectors Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: The letter starts by claiming that the majority of their spectors are carping the coverage of weather an local news.
Error: spectors Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: It is not explained, on the other hand, what is the subject of complaning regarding this matter, that is, people could be not enjoying the reporter, the edition or even the credibility of the news.
Error: complaning Suggestion: complaining
Sentence: If local news presented are not germane, poeple may be frustrated and start to complain about it.
Error: poeple Suggestion: people
Sentence: In numbers, is it really substancial to be taken for granted?
Error: substancial Suggestion: substantial
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 376 350
No. of Characters: 1910 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.403 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.08 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.662 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 149 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.237 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.384 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.622 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 1, 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.
...y possible alternative explanations. The letter starts by claiming that the majo...
^^^
Line 3, column 103, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...ors are carping the coverage of weather an local news. It is not explained, on the...
^^
Line 3, column 103, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'local news'.
Suggestion: local news
...ors are carping the coverage of weather an local news. It is not explained, on the other hand...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, really, regarding, second, so, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1964.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.22340425532 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73652507543 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.473404255319 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 603.0 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 74.4158201306 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.285714286 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.8571428571 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.21428571429 5.70786347227 144% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.301583368232 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.114955414333 0.0743258471296 155% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0774027518954 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169881427828 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0274459536681 0.0628817314937 44% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.6 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 95.0 98.500998004 96% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.