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 of the television station argues that it should take the decision of amending program aback to prevent further revenue loss. The decision she suggests may result in an increase in the revenue as asserted. However, since her reasoning written in the memorandum is somewhat weak, there should be more facts and evidence that cover the loopholes in the argument.
She suggests the proportion of complaints from the viewers as the first reason to increase the weather and local news time to the previous level. However, since the characters of such complaints are in veil, it is highly uncertain that whether their existence can take a role to bolster his conclusion. For instance, the complaints might have been submitted by a single viewer, who is veet ardent in watching whether news. Further, it can be also case that there are a dominating number of viewers who favor national news and keep silent. If this is the case, it is hard to say that there is a potential threat of decrease in the number of people watching the late-night news program, which is implied by the manager. It can also be true, for his luck, there are number of people actually out there who are uncomfortable of the change in the news program's time allocation. However, it is not possible to check which case is true due to the lack of evidence, his argument is hard to say credible.
Another thing to be addressed is the canceled advertising contract. Yes, it is bitter for the company to lose such contract
given that advertisements are the main source of revenue for a broadcasting company. However, one cancellation does not directly mean the collapse of entire company; rather, there might have been the influx of new advertisements, cheering for the change in the news program, which greatly increased the future revenue of the company. This can be true, if the potential advertisements buyers speculate that more national news will induce more viewers, which enhance the effects of the ads. On the other hand, a very opposite case might be true; if the firms believe that the effect of advertisements will epp. The local business which refused to contract with the company might have expected the latter since its main customer pool is likely to locate within the local area, and the decrease in the local news time might imply a decrease in local viewers, which will lead to a decrease in ads. Unfortunately, the very reason why it canceled the contract remain undetermined, and therefore we cannot simply say restoring the program will result in their coming back. Therefore, the manager would get help from providing further data on the reasons of changes in advertising decision of firms.
Even if all of his allegations about the relationship between the news program time distribution and advertising revenue, though doubtful, are true, it does not imply that restoring the previous time table will increase revenue. Suppose, on the other hand, that viewers are sensitive to changes in news program rather than how it is consist. That is, it is possible that viewers want stable news program and that is why the number of them decreased after the news program had changed. However, the manager does not give any reason for predicting the restoration would increase the revenue. Therefore, it may be more important to figure out, rather than simply depending on the conspicuous phenomenon, what is the factor influencing the decision of viewers.
I see the manager has a good intention on the company; she wants to save the company from the reduction in revenue. Though it is very kind of her, and I appreciate that, there are a number of issues to be addressed before making the decision, accepting her opinion, too quickly. Without careful consideration, neither may the company be able to increase the revenue nor it maintain the current one, which is undesirable.
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: 26 15
No. of Words: 653 350
No. of Characters: 3147 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.055 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.819 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.612 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 232 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 181 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.115 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.924 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.808 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.483 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 125, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...er for the company to lose such contract given that advertisements are the main s...
^^^
Line 8, column 335, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[1]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'consisted'.
Suggestion: consisted
...s in news program rather than how it is consist. That is, it is possible that viewers w...
^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 374, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'maintains'?
Suggestion: maintains
... be able to increase the revenue nor it maintain the current one, which is undesirable.
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, may, so, therefore, another thing, for instance, kind of, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 39.0 19.6327345309 199% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3235.0 2260.96107784 143% => OK
No of words: 653.0 441.139720559 148% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.95405819296 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.05508305356 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6966236246 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 282.0 204.123752495 138% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.431852986217 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1010.7 705.55239521 143% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 16.0 4.96107784431 323% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.6178597972 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.423076923 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.1153846154 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.46153846154 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.258390908777 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0721843254407 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0689991992641 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117643261562 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0844098695749 0.0628817314937 134% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.