"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.
In the preceding statement, the author makes the claim that Super Screen-produced movies are good quality and they should spend more budget to advertise their films for the public to watch. He bases his assumptions on the evidence that the movie reviewers gave positive reviews for their films and public are not watching them just because their content is not reaching the viewers. His premises and reasoning for the conclusion clearly seems poor and groundless. The author needs to provide further elucidations if he wants to bridge the gap between his evidence and the conclusion.
The initial problem with the argument is the possible flaws in the claim that the percentage of positive reviews increased during the past year. This evidence, in its own, does not have any merit to substantiate the conclusion. Are the movie reviewers professional? Do they have enough knowledge about the elements that make a movie good? The author does not provide answers for any such queries. It is equally likely that the reviewers were paid fair share of money to say good things about the movies as most product reviewers nowadays do. Moreover, the percentage statistics does not represent the true numbers. If the number of reviewers decreased than other years, then the positive reviews per number of reviewers might increase on its own. It is not unnatural to be liked by some in a group of few people. Unless the author accounts for more explanations in this regard, the argument will undermine itself.
Furthermore, the unsubstantiated reasoning that because of positive reviews, their movies are of better quality and content brings the conclusion further down. Some movies get good reviews even if they have below par quality due to the presence of better stars or some philosophical lessons. Not all viewers like such movies. Perhaps the movies' content was not up to the viewing standard of the public. Or, there were even better quality movies being produced by other companies. For instance, if a movie of historical era were to be shown in the midst of back to back hits avengers, no one is goind to watch that movie. I admit it is the superior quality of the latter for the former to not succeed, it still is not the same quality as the public demands. After all, the movie industry is all about public's opinion. So, the inadmissible assertion that movies are of good quality just because of increment of positive reviews weakens the conclusion.
Finally, the author is inferring that the sole reason for the public to not attend Super Screen-produced movies is due to lack of advertisement. However, he does not provide any more infallible evidence for this claim. He does not mention whether such advertisement have facililated them earlier or not. It is totally possible that the movies produced by them were advertised well in the past years and still the public did not attend their movies. There might be many factors apart from advertisement such as high ticket cost, or infavourable release timing, etc. If this is true, then the argument is likely to fail.
Although the author provides unjustified reasoning and premises to develop his conclusion, it is not entirely fallible. So, if the author agrees to fix the flaws and provide ironclad evidences, then the argument could be considered for further evaluation.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, furthermore, however, if, moreover, so, still, then, well, after all, apart from, for instance, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2784.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 555.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01621621622 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85370353223 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69096309217 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455855855856 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 864.9 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => 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: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.8194424261 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.8064516129 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.9032258065 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.61290322581 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.16189794941 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0432002601638 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0486333156312 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.090717031621 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0660323237636 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.54 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, furthermore, however, if, moreover, so, still, then, well, after all, apart from, for instance, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2784.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 555.0 441.139720559 126% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01621621622 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.85370353223 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69096309217 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 204.123752495 124% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455855855856 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 864.9 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => 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: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.8194424261 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.8064516129 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.9032258065 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.61290322581 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.16189794941 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0432002601638 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0486333156312 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.090717031621 0.128457276422 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0660323237636 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.54 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.