"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 memo from the advertising directory of the Super Screen Movie Production Company augues that allocating more fund in advertising is going to attract more people to its movies. It does that on the premise that there is an increse in the percentage of good reviews of the movies it had produced in the past year and these reviews are not reaching enough people. But, before evaluating the recommendation, we need to find answers to three questions.
Firstly, are the quality of the movies produced past year were really good enough to attract people? The memo does say that they had fewer people attending their movies past year than any other year. That means, it might be that in the other years the movies produced were good quality ones and in the past year there actually fewer good movies to watch. It is the quality of the movies that would attract the people to attend the movies not the advertisement. In fact, over advertisement of poor quality movies can subvert any chances that the production company has, to really succeed and attract a big crowd. For example, If one goes to a movies seeing really good advertisement and finds out in the theatre that it is really not what it claimed to be or at least it is not what he/she would like to watch. That person will have the impression that this production company uses malpractice for attracting people to poor quality movies. And, the production company will lose a movie goes parmanently, because even when they produce a good movie that person is not going to trust that advertising.
Secondly, are the increment in the positive reviews really expressing the general public opinion regarding the movies? It might be the case that the fewer people that attended that movies, were novices when it comes to judge a movie critically. Or, they might be the people who have good relation with the production company. They might be people who happens to like the specific genra of movies that were in play. The point is, when the total number of people in a survey decreases, it starts lose its credulity in terms really speaking for the general people. Likewise, as there were less people attending the movies, the increment in the positive reviews doesn't really speak for the crowd that the movies are really good.
Lastly, is there really a lack of advertising? It can be inferred from the memo that there were good number of people attending movies of the production company in other years except the past year. So, if the decrease in the attendance in movies is soley because of lack of advertising then how come there were more people in other years? The same amount of fund and the probably the same strategies fetched them more attendance in their theatre in other years. So, it can't be concluded with the information provided that there is really a backslide in the advertising techniques of the production company.
To conclude, the recommendation recommended in the memo is in fact, tentative. The questions asked above need to answered to be able to evaluate if the recommendation is really plausible one.
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: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 533 350
No. of Characters: 2499 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.805 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.689 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.509 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.208 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.405 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.542 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.347 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.347 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 75, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
... positive reviews really expressing the general public opinion regarding the movies? It might ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 587, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...general people. Likewise, as there were less people attending the movies, the increm...
^^^^
Line 3, column 659, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
..., the increment in the positive reviews doesnt really speak for the crowd that the mov...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 205, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...other years except the past year. So, if the decrease in the attendance in movies...
^^
Line 4, column 369, Rule ID: THE_EXACTLY_THE[1]
Message: Duplicated 'the' in the phrase: 'the probably the'. Did you mean 'probably the'?
Suggestion: probably the
...ther years? The same amount of fund and the probably the same strategies fetched them more atten...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 471, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...in their theatre in other years. So, it cant be concluded with the information provi...
^^^^
Line 4, column 471, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'cants'?
Suggestion: cants
...in their theatre in other years. So, it cant be concluded with the information provi...
^^^^
Line 4, column 540, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...formation provided that there is really a backslide in the advertising techniques of the pr...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, likewise, really, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, at least, for example, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2551.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 531.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 4.80414312618 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80035803286 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56969761894 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.386064030132 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 798.3 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.7336273052 57.8364921388 64% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.291666667 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.125 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.41666666667 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.315189955127 0.218282227539 144% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103278254716 0.0743258471296 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.088138398052 0.0701772020484 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.174783695029 0.128457276422 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0973871064755 0.0628817314937 155% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.56 12.5979740519 84% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.37 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => 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: 66.67 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.