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.
There are a number of unwarranted and illogical assumptions in the memo written by the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company. Taken as whole, these assumptions render the argument highly suspect. Unless these assumptions can be improved, his or her argument which was based on these assumptions is consequently faulty.
Firstly, the advertising director stated that the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific super screen movies increased during the past year. However, one is forced to wonder about the increase or decrease in the amount of negative reviews for the same super screen movies. If for instance, in previous years, positive reviews only accounted for about 10% of all reviews about said movies, and the remaining 90% were neutral and or negative reviews, an increase of merely 5%, from to 10% to 15% of positive reviews is hardly enough to justify the director's claim. Also, if the number of positive reviews increased, who's to say the number of negative reviews did not also increase? Had the argument taken into account this specific factors, one may be more certain about the impact these supposed increase in positive reviews have on the argument. More information is needed to emphatetically conclude that the stated increase in positive reviews is beneficial to the argument as a whole.
Secondly, it is assumed the the contents of the reviews are not reaching enough of the prospective viewers. No evidence was supplied for this assumption and it puts a dent to the director's argument. Indeed, it may be that the internet website on which the reviews are often projected to the public is faulty and prospective viewers will be unable to view them. This would mean that the views are not getting to the viewers but not for the reason he as assumed but for other reasons. Reasons which his or her proposed recommendations will be unable to solve. Also, there is the possibility that contrary to the director's assumption, the reviews are actually getting to the viewers. However, the viewers largely ignore them since they now prefer movies from companies other than the super screen movie production company. If the argument had taken these factors into account, they could have found reasons other than their unwarranted ones for the unexpected turn of events.
Finally, it is assumed that there is no problem with the quality of the movies. The movies may actually have poor quality that would have led to prospective viewers ignoring any positive reviews. Viewers probably thought those reviews were mendacious based on their own perceptions of movies produced by the Super Screen Movie Production Company. If this movies are of poor quality, the director's recommendation to allocated a greater share of the company's budget to advertising will not amount to anything good in the long run. If the company had correctly identified the poor quality of their movies, they would have been more amenable to improving them and subsequently increasing their number of viewers.
In conclusion, the advertising director's recommendation that Super Screen should allocate a greater share of budget next year to reaching the generally public is based on some unwarranted assumptions that makes the argument fall apart. As a result, these assumptions must be reviewed before any recommendation is executed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 545 350
No. of Characters: 2775 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.832 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.092 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.721 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 217 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.708 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.213 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.315 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 163, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...creen Movie Production Company. Taken as whole, these assumptions render the argu...
^^
Line 3, column 641, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: who's
...e number of positive reviews increased, whos to say the number of negative reviews d...
^^^^
Line 5, column 25, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... as a whole. Secondly, it is assumed the the contents of the reviews are not reachin...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 25, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... as a whole. Secondly, it is assumed the the contents of the reviews are not reachin...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 180, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...is assumption and it puts a dent to the directors argument. Indeed, it may be that the in...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 611, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...is the possibility that contrary to the directors assumption, the reviews are actually ge...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 351, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...per Screen Movie Production Company. If this movies are of poor quality, the directo...
^^^^
Line 7, column 388, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...If this movies are of poor quality, the directors recommendation to allocated a greater s...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, for instance, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2836.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 545.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20366972477 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83169070408 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75229357798 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.422018348624 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 894.6 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.3062284774 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.166666667 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7083333333 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.83333333333 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.367071534078 0.218282227539 168% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.123565879063 0.0743258471296 166% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.149408010835 0.0701772020484 213% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.285286262305 0.128457276422 222% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.259904255203 0.0628817314937 413% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => 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: 13.18 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.32 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.