The following is a memorandum from the business manager of WLSS television station.
"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increasingly more time to covering national news and less time to covering weather and local news. During the same time period, most of the complaints(1,4) we received from viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news(2,3). In addition, several local businesses that used to run advertisements during our late-night news program have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us(5). Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all(7) our news programs(6).
The author proposes to restore the time in their late-night news program devoted to weather and local news to the former level. To support his/ her proposal, the writer quotes two facts. One is that over the past year, most of the received complaints from the viewers were about the coverage of local news and weather. Another is the decreased advertising revenue from local businesses. Quite convincing though the argument seem at the first glance, however, the statement lacks critical support and therefore we need further evidence to help evaluate the proposal.
First of all, the writer claims that during last year, most of the complaints were about the coverage of weather and local news. It is possible that the decreased time spent on local news and weather leads to more complaints. However, currently we have no idea about the nature of the complaints. It might be the case that the audience were complaining about the quality of the content related to the local news and weather. They might be unsatisfied with the low accuracy of the weather report. Moreover, further more specific information about the content of the complaints will be helpful to determine whether viewers were truly complaining about the shortened length of the segment in night-news edition or just even about the other programs during the day. Thus, further surveys and data will be necessary to know what the audience are truly caring about. Sometimes it is the personalities and the chemistry of the news anchors that govern people's decisions about which station's news they watch. The business manager will never know unless he asks the viewers exactly why they do or do not enjoy watching his news program.
In addition, the argument attributes the lost advertising revenue from the local businesses to the shortened segments of local news and weather as well. As far as I am concerned, the conclusion may be too naive and lacking of evidence. Without further information and evidence, we cannot know the exact reason of the lost revenue. It is possible that the local businesses just found out that the advertisement in their program did not contribute much to their profitability, therefore in order to cut the costs, they withdrew the money spent on the late-night news. It also might be the case that the local businesses built connection with other programs or they were losing money these years and therefore had to cut costs on the advertisement. If the manager could establish that businesses discontinued advertising contracts specifically because they were displeased with the change in news coverage, and that the remaining advertisers are on the verge of leaving if coverage of weather and local news is not increased, that information would help eliminate other possible explanations. Otherwise, we have no reason to anticipate more advertising revenue only after increasing the time devoted to local news and weather.
Evidence that research had been conducted to find specific ways to attract viewers to a news program would also strengthen the argument. Moreover, findings from research about what viewers would like to see on the program may help. Data about which ratings are highest and what people are watching would assist the business manager in his or her decision about how to change the program.
To sum up, it is possible that they could drive the advertising revenue and attract more audience by restore the time devoted to local news and weather. However, there are other possibilities and without further evidence, we cannot evaluate which is the most possible one.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 588 350
No. of Characters: 2945 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.924 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.009 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.593 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 201 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 176 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.615 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.389 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.329 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.15 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, well, in addition, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 23.0 11.1786427146 206% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 81.0 55.5748502994 146% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3001.0 2260.96107784 133% => OK
No of words: 588.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1037414966 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.9242980521 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65812082957 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.41156462585 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 931.5 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.0237698185 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.423076923 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6153846154 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.42307692308 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.334915429709 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.108733796642 0.0743258471296 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.098188355585 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.201775800123 0.128457276422 157% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.072418192121 0.0628817314937 115% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.76 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.