The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.
"According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author of the argument proposes that Super Screen should allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising. To buttress his/her conclusion, the author cites the following evidences: first, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than any other year; second, the percentage of positive reviews increases. The argument may have its merit, but due to relevant evidences and unaddressed assumptions, the recommendation here is unsubstantiated and flawed.
To begin with, the accuracy and validity of the report and reviews are questionable. If the positive reviews were two percent last year, with decreasing attendance, while those was about one percent in the previous years, then this one percentage increase does not necessarily indicate the improvement of movie qualities. We are not given the information, such as attendance in other movie theaters. If there is a universal decline in the number of people watching movies, then Super Screen may consider advertising movie in terms of whole industry. Moreover, the relationship between people watching movie and the reviews remains untested. People, deciding on whether to watch movie, might make decision based only on rates. Instead of reading every review carefully, they choose to glance the rates of each movie. Even if there are positive reviews which give relatively high rates, most of reviews can be bad with extremely low rates. The overall rating of Super Screen might still be very low, which deters people from heading to it.
Furthermore, the author assumes that the only reason that fewer people watch Super Screen movies is lack of public awareness of the good quality movies. The assumption may seem valid at first glance, careful investigation suggests that it is unwarranted. Many other plausible explanations remain unproven. Say, for example, that people nowadays are busy with their work and do not have much leisure time or that they prefer to watch movies on TV or Internet. Even if movies become better, in this case, the amount of individuals going to Super Screen can still be small.
Last but not least, the author falsely predicts that by distributing more money on advertisement, there will be more people attending Super Screen-produced movies. When Super Screen puts more money on advertising, owing to limited budget, it may spend less money on the shooting and producing new movies. The movie quality hence will be decreased in the next year. People who see the advertisement would still not come to watch the Super Screen movies because of poor quality. The author fails to come up with more feasible ways to attract potential consumers. Super Screen might offer better services, giving people better experiencing when watching movie. They can do so by providing free beverages and snacks. No one can easily make conclusion about the best improvement without comparing different kinds of suggestions carefully.
To sum up, as it stands, the argument by the author is relied on several problematic assumptions that weakens its validity. To further strengthen its credibility, the author is advised to provide the evidences as follows: first, the percentage of positive reviews is a reasonable and credible measure with regard to the quality of Super Screen movies; second, there are strong evidences that people not going to Super Screen is only ascribed to unawareness of improving movie qualities; third, a persuasive research conducted by the professional experts indicates spending more money on advertising is the solo resort to the current issue.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not exactly. it is 'about specific Super Screen movies', not all movies
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: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 573 350
No. of Characters: 2962 1500
No. of Different Words: 280 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.893 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.169 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.706 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 222 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.464 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.051 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.272 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.445 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.077 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 514, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ere is unsubstantiated and flawed. To begin with, the accuracy and validity...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 886, Rule ID: MOST_SOME_OF_NNS[1]
Message: After 'most of', you should use 'the' ('most of the reviews') or simply say ''most reviews''.
Suggestion: most of the reviews; most reviews
...views which give relatively high rates, most of reviews can be bad with extremely low rates. Th...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ng to Super Screen can still be small. Last but not least, the author falsely p...
^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...inds of suggestions carefully. To sum up, as it stands, the argument by...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, second, so, still, then, third, while, for example, such as, to begin with, to sum up, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3066.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 570.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.37894736842 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88617158649 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89864488988 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 302.0 204.123752495 148% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.529824561404 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 944.1 705.55239521 134% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 94.877386136 57.8364921388 164% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.64 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.08 5.70786347227 107% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.291103306275 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0842925164107 0.0743258471296 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0763779633164 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17293040512 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0279732381583 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: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => 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: 14.22 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.83 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 148.0 98.500998004 150% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.