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 argument that the decrease in the number of viewers of Super Screen-produced movies past year will be offset with an increase in the budget relocated for advertisement may seem tenable at the first glance. The author makes a valid argument, one that would be correct if its premises were true. However, the conclusion in the memo relies on assumptions for which there are no clear evidence.
Firstly, the writing assumes that one year decrease in the number of viewers is an obvious determinant of the general perception of the people about the Super Screen-produced movies. To be able to draw such a sharp conclusion one must have thorough examination of the situation. In addition, this cannot be a decision based on solely on one year. The important element in this situation should be the general trend regarding the favorability of the said company’s movies. What was the attendance like last 5 years? Is there a continuous decline for a couple of years? These questions must be answered to handle the problem. Maybe there is another movie company in town and they sell their products in a price that people do not hesitate to watch them instead of others. Maybe people are spending their time at home and utilizing streaming web sites in stead of conventional movie theaters. These are all exigent matters that must be answered intricately.
Secondly, the memo cites the results of a survey that puts forward that people who watched movies have positive feelings about the movies. However, unless the survey is fully representative, valid and reliable, it cannot be used to effectively back the writer’s argument. Taking what viewers say in the survey at face value can be misleading. While the correlations stated are logical and probable there may be other factors affecting the feelings of the movie watchers. May be this year the theme of the movies was about the protection of the public recreation parks and although people did not like the movies, since they were supporting the idea, they cast their vote as positive. We can never know that. It is not the survey that can decide whether a movie is a successful one or not. Did anyone one of these movies receive any award? Were they successful enough to attend international shows? Did any celebrity director or producer say anything laudable about these movies? Are there any critics written about them? After these questions are answered, then we can get a clear idea about the quality of the movies.
Thirdly, the author assumes that people are unaware of the quality level of the movies. Here, the author has no clear evidence on that and he or she takes a wild guess. How can people be blamed of unawareness or ignorance? In such an important decision making process for the company, that would not be a clever way to approach the problem. If a company is planning to invest lots of money on an advertisement project, the logic should be cogent and applicable. We are living in an era of information. There are many information channels in the use of people when needed. Maybe people have so enough information that they did not like this year’s movies. Maybe the company was unsuccessful when choosing the genres this year. Maybe they did not address people’s tastes. Instead of construing the situation in such a subtle way, the firm should focus on the quality understanding of people in spite of their choices.
In conclusion, for the reasons mentioned above, even if the budget of the advertisement is decided to be increased, the author’s arguments is not likely to significantly persuade the decision takers to allocate increased budget, since there are not enough pieces of evidence let alone strong ones.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 37 15
No. of Words: 625 350
No. of Characters: 3001 1500
No. of Different Words: 290 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.802 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.62 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 217 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 146 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.892 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.12 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.432 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.231 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.387 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 850, Rule ID: IN_STEAD_OF[1]
Message: Did you mean 'instead of'?
Suggestion: instead of
... home and utilizing streaming web sites in stead of conventional movie theaters. These are ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 476, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...the feelings of the movie watchers. May be this year the theme of the movies was a...
^^
Line 7, column 727, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ful when choosing the genres this year. Maybe they did not address people’s tastes. I...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, while, in addition, in conclusion, in spite of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 40.0 19.6327345309 204% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3084.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 625.0 441.139720559 142% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.9344 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.0 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72346884689 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 295.0 204.123752495 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 981.0 705.55239521 139% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 37.0 19.7664670659 187% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 56.2849112505 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 83.3513513514 119.503703932 70% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8918918919 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.64864864865 5.70786347227 64% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.163026600573 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0403740345488 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0428525602651 0.0701772020484 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0926486666031 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.046092818563 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.2 14.3799401198 71% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.02 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 148.0 98.500998004 150% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.