"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 memo from an advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production company contends that advertising is the main culprit in declining attendance to the studio's movies, forgoing other possible explanations. Several questions would need to be answered first before laying the blame at advertising. These would include what were the movie attendance numbers for other studios, whether movie-goers are motivated to watch the movie in the theater based on advertising, or whether there has been a general shift in attitudes from appreciating critically-approved art in favor of formulaic and hackneyed productions.
The decline in ticket sales for this production company's movies might possibly correlate with declining sales for all competing films in this period. The advertising director did not consider if there has been an economic downturn that left most people with less disposable income to go to the movies. In addition, moviegoers might have opted to stream media at-home using services this company does not support. Besides streaming, illegal downloads are also a factor this executive did not consider, and this activity is responsible for all studios losing profit as this option did not exist to consumers pre-internet, and paying hard-earned cash was literally the only option to enjoy these pieces of entertainment.
Movies that are well-reviewed are not necessarily ones that would capture the audience's attention, whether they received proper advertising or not. The tastes of critics are, in fact, usually not synonymous with what the audience likes. To give an example of this, if you were to look at the list of Oscar-contenders and winners every year, they would rarely feature the highest-grossing movies in terms of ticket sales. Formulaic, repetitive stories are not frowned upon by the general audience but are rarely given five-start reviews by critics. Examples of which are cartoony action movies, or dumb slapstick comedies, all of which generate hundreds of millions of profits to studios in some cases.
To conclude, the advertising director ignores asking pertinent questions before hastily jumping to the conclusion that the ad budget is increased. The director is clearly biased in this regard, and does not consider economic factors for the decline in profit for the production company, nor does not measure the attitudes of the very audience he is attempting to cater to. Movie-goer tastes are easily quantifiable via audience reviews and internet forums or directed surveys, and that should have been the first question for this company's executives to address instead of having this memo be sent.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 412 350
No. of Characters: 2195 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.505 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.328 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.867 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.379 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.534 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.054 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 65, Rule ID: MIGHT_PERHAPS[1]
Message: Use simply 'might', 'possibly'.
Suggestion: might; possibly
...les for this production companys movies might possibly correlate with declining sales for all ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 65, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'might'.
Suggestion: might
...les for this production companys movies might possibly correlate with declining sales for all ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 79, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'audiences'' or 'audience's'?
Suggestion: audiences'; audience's
...necessarily ones that would capture the audiences attention, whether they received proper...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, if, look, so, well, in addition, in fact, in some cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2237.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 412.0 441.139720559 93% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.42961165049 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50530610838 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92084901829 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.558252427184 0.468620217663 119% => OK
syllable_count: 697.5 705.55239521 99% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.9051069301 57.8364921388 116% => OK
Chars per sentence: 149.133333333 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.4666666667 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.46666666667 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.173759158018 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.057881164279 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0857616237005 0.0701772020484 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.110802808071 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0925311058636 0.0628817314937 147% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.9 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.51 12.5979740519 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 10.03 8.32208582834 121% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => 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.