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 advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company recommends allocating a higher share of its budget for the succeeding year to advertising which, in the director's opinion, will increase the footfall of audience. Although increasing the advertising budget may increase the viewership of the Super Screen Production company, the director of the company must answer the following three questions which are based on the three unwarranted assumptions before this recommendation can be accepted.
First of all, what if the lack of attendance of audience last year that the director provides as an evidence for the company's low reachability was an anomaly or an aberration? What if the number of people visiting the Super Screen Movie theatre were quite high in the last five years preceding the last year in which case the last year can be ignored as being an outlier data point. In addition, what if there were other external factors in play which resulted in this low outcome? It is possible that some other competitor offered high incentives to the people for watching movies in their theatres even though the quality of their movies was substandard as compared to the Super Screen movies. Also , what if the climate of the last year was particularly bad which resulted in a very lean period for the whole movie production industry and this reduction in audience is not specific to Super Screen Movie only. If answer to any of these two questions is assertive, then the director's whole argument falls apart.
Second of all, what if the percentage increase of positive reveiws given by movie reviewers was immaterial? It might be the case that the number of positive review in the preceding year to the last year were 2% in a sample of 1000 movie reviewers and in the last year the the percentage share increased to 3% which basically means only 20 additional positive reviews which does not bolster the argument that the quality of movies produced actually increased. Also what if the movie reviewers were biased in there opinions and were infact lying about the quality of the movies? It is possible that the production Company actually provided perks to the reviewers to give the company better reviews but the public in general did not accept this considering no actual jump in the quality of the movies this production company churned out. If any of these two questions are answered in positive, the author's argument that increased percentage of positive reviews reflects jump in the quality of the content does not hold water.
Last of all, what is the guarantee that increasing the budget of advertisement will actually result in greater influx of audiences to the company's theatre? It might be possible that the type of movies that the production house makes only attract a niche segment of the society and thus, even if large banners and more television advertisements were made, it may fail to catch the interest of a wider audience. In addition, it is also possible that the audience may consider the increased advertisement content of the Production company in a negative context i.e. the increased desperation of the Super Screen Movie Production house for attention might eschew away the ardent followers of the company which in effect may affect the viewership negatively. If either of these two assumptions are proven to be without basis, the pursuasiveness of the director's argument shall be highly diminished.
Thus, to conclude, although the director's recommendation that increasing the reachability of the company to a larger demographics by allocating higher budget to the advertisement next year might be of some validity, the director must answer the above stated three questions in order to make a his argument more compelling. The recommendation, as it stands now, is rife with holes and unwarranted assumptions and hence, cannot be taken at face value.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 19 15
No. of Words: 642 350
No. of Characters: 3215 1500
No. of Different Words: 258 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.034 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.008 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.783 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 230 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 179 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 139 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 82 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 33.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.833 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.895 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 175, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...eding year to advertising which, in the directors opinion, will increase the footfall of ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 701, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...ompared to the Super Screen movies. Also , what if the climate of the last year wa...
^^
Line 5, column 269, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...00 movie reviewers and in the last year the the percentage share increased to 3% which ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 269, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...00 movie reviewers and in the last year the the percentage share increased to 3% which ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 460, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... of movies produced actually increased. Also what if the movie reviewers were biased...
^^^^
Line 5, column 896, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...questions are answered in positive, the authors argument that increased percentage of p...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 848, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...ithout basis, the pursuasiveness of the directors argument shall be highly diminished. ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 33, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...hed. Thus, to conclude, although the directors recommendation that increasing the reac...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 292, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'a' or 'his'?
Suggestion: a; his
...stated three questions in order to make a his argument more compelling. The recommend...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, if, may, second, so, then, thus, in addition, in general, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 33.0 16.3942115768 201% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3265.0 2260.96107784 144% => OK
No of words: 642.0 441.139720559 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08566978193 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.03365860172 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81027944718 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 257.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.40031152648 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1031.4 705.55239521 146% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 33.0 22.8473053892 144% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 79.1343049957 57.8364921388 137% => OK
Chars per sentence: 171.842105263 119.503703932 144% => OK
Words per sentence: 33.7894736842 23.324526521 145% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.52631578947 5.70786347227 97% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24410025362 0.218282227539 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0869518652074 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0626633413675 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151324403743 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0574311145103 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.4 14.3799401198 135% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.98 48.3550499002 79% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.2 12.197005988 133% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.52 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.2 11.1389221557 136% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.