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."
The director asserts that Super Screen should allot a higher fraction of its next year's budget to advertising based on evidence described in the memo. However, a careful look at the details in the memo reveals that there are several questions that need to be addressed in order to assess the logic of the recommendation and the argument.
Firstly, will the trend of less attendence at Super Screen-produced movies continue into the next year? Granted that the memo stated there were fewer persons in the past year than in anyother year, but there apperas to be no evidence to support that this trend will be sustained in the future. Increasing the budgetary allocation for advertising should be premised on undisputable evidence and hence the above question needs to be considered and answered.
Secondly, what is the feedback/review on Super Screen movies in general (rather than just particular/specific movies)? Furthermore, what is number of persons who responded to review and the total number of attendees? Answers to these questions would provide a more wholistic assessment of the the public perception of the company's movies. The advertising increment is not targeted at specific movies and hence making decisions based on feedback on certain movies maybe wrong. In addition, knowing the number of reviewers and attendees could enable a better judgement of the reliability of the reviews as a basis for increasing the budget for advertising.
Thirdly, how does the director know the public is unaware of the company's offerrings? Is this belief supported by any detailed study or survey by Super Screen? Moreover, is there any data that shows that spending more money (beyond the current allocation) on publicity increases movie viewership? The firm needs to deliberately ponder over the above questions and seek unbiased information. Furthermore, would increasing the budget for advertising not impact other aspects of the budget e.g. research and development, staff costs etc? Can the company afford further spending? Addressing these questions would enable the firm decide a course of action that will be beneficial for Super Screen.
In conclusion, the argument of the director appears inherently flawed. Responding to the above questions could help make a proper evaluation of the argument (conclusion).
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 367 350
No. of Characters: 1913 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.377 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.213 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.757 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.389 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.832 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.556 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.052 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 288, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
... provide a more wholistic assessment of the the public perception of the companys movie...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 288, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
... provide a more wholistic assessment of the the public perception of the companys movie...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 409, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'increase'
Suggestion: increase
...nbiased information. Furthermore, would increasing the budget for advertising not impact o...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, e.g., first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, look, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, as to, in addition, in conclusion, in general
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1958.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 365.0 441.139720559 83% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.36438356164 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37092360658 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95792221151 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.539726027397 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 604.8 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.0543259895 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.052631579 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2105263158 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.63157894737 5.70786347227 151% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.223535305055 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0691780359832 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0710442506605 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117065890335 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0518984342897 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.25 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.