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 plan proposed by the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company, aimed at increasing the number of people who attend their movies, is based on numerous unwarranted assumptions rather than logical reasoning. Since the success of the plan depends on these unstated assumptions, more information needs to be collected, analyzed and presented before executing the proposed plan, or the plan might utterly fail.
First and foremost, the director fails to mention by how many percentages the number of people who attended the movie dropped, or the positive reviews increased. There are no statistics of box-office sales presented. It might be the case that both the increase and the decrease are negligible and not worth allocating extra budget to mitigate the situation. Moreover, did the last year's sales drop compared to two years ago or the prior five year interval? This information is not stated. Thus, it might be the case that two years ago sales were exeptionally high and last year's sales are merely being compared to that year which completely undermines this argument.
Moreover, it is assumed that the reviews didn't reach enough of the potential viewers, and this was why the number of the people who attended the company's movies decreased. Although this might the case, it is not likely to be so. Nowadays, all reviews are published online and the first thing most people do before going to a movie is to check the reviews online. Therefore, it is not likely that not enough prospective viewers saw the positive reviews. Moreover, an increase in the percentage of positive reviews combined with a decrease in the total number of reviews could cause the prospective viewers to become more skeptical about the authenticity of the content of the reviews.
The company assumes that lack of awareness of the positive reviews and the good quality of the movies is the reason why less people are attending their movies. However, many other possible explanations are not being considered. For instance, fewer people might have attended any movies during last year due to a pandemic and that the percentage of people who attend this company's movies remained the same or even increased..
To conclude, the plan of the advertising director to increase the number of people who attend the company's movies is based on many assumptions and not enough concrete information. More information needs to be collected and presented before extra budget is allocated to advertising.
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: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 2053 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.032 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.623 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.741 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.057 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 448, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'interval' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'intervals'.
Suggestion: intervals
...to two years ago or the prior five year interval? This information is not stated. Thus, ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 42, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...oreover, it is assumed that the reviews didnt reach enough of the potential viewers, ...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 121, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...quality of the movies is the reason why less people are attending their movies. Howe...
^^^^
Line 7, column 423, Rule ID: DOUBLE_PUNCTUATION
Message: Two consecutive dots
Suggestion: .
...vies remained the same or even increased.. To conclude, the plan of the adverti...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2101.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 407.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.16216216216 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49157444576 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71036661884 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.459459459459 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 666.9 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.3224872592 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.722222222 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6111111111 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.61111111111 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => 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: 0.190471661304 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0589273268909 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0740579034306 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119118573421 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0503997496741 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.