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 advertising director recommends that Super Screen increase its budgetary allocation, in the next year, towards advertising. The company believes that improving audience awareness about the positive reviews and the contents is positively correlated with higher attendance. The memorandum bases this belief on supporting evidence which states that the percentage of favorable reviews is not reaching enough viewers. However, before implementing the recommendation, there are certain questions which require closer scrutiny. The implications need examining and the argument could still be valid or be weakened further.
Firstly, the attendance numbers for super screen produced movies as compared to the overall industry needs a closer examining. The company must scrutinize information about audience numbers over the past year, when evaluating budgetary allocation. If audience numbers have been declining as a universal trend, merely enhancing the advertising budget would make little difference to improve attendances. The director would rather emphasize how fun it is to watch Super Screen movies in the theaters; this could perhaps increase viewer numbers as compared to merely stating the positive reviews.
Another question which arises is whether the percentage of positive reviews is actually a good metric for determining the movies impact. It is possibly true that viewers are not aware of the contents: take for example, ten top movie critics publishing their comments on most visited websites; audiences only tend to check the blogs or critics' feedback on these websites but not the lesser well known reviewers. More information about the viewer characteristics and preferences gleaned from surveys, perhaps facilitates an informed decision. The company could then modify its' strategy with an informed decision about whether movie-goers actually are aware of these reviews or critics. Moreover, information about the number of reviews is necessary-a positive percentage over just two reviews in the intervening year is unlikely to improve attendance, perhaps there are other ways for measuring the impact of movies, maybe?
Finally, a question about any relationship between movie-goers and critics perhaps informs any changes to company strategy. The immediately preceding paragraph mentioned that consumers are perhaps not aware of the reviews. Suppose that they actually knew the contents of the critics' blogs- instead of favorable feedback about movie-goers' action movie tastes, these well known columnists write good comments about Super Screen produced romance movies. There is no way of determining if increasing advertising budget will be successful, if theater-goer characteristics are not known from surveys. Furthermore, closer examining of movie critic feedback and Super Screen consumer preferences requires scrutiny, especially in the past few years, to know if the public is actually aware of quality of movies that are produced and reviewer contents.
To conclude, the director requires supporting evidence which evaluates the merits of the argument and the recommendation. Certain questions like the suitability of the percentage of positive reviews as a metric, or, closely examining any possible relationship between critics and movie-goers require examining potential implications before deciding whether increasing the advertising budget, over the next year is actually a viable option.
Finally,
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 500 350
No. of Characters: 2880 1500
No. of Different Words: 230 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.729 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.76 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.863 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 252 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 208 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 146 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 83 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.727 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.661 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.046 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 277, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...vely correlated with higher attendance. The memorandum bases this belief on support...
^^^
Line 9, column 441, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... next year is actually a viable option. Finally,
^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 9, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tually a viable option. Finally,
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, still, then, well, for example
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 : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2948.0 2260.96107784 130% => OK
No of words: 500.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.896 5.12650576532 115% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72870804502 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93858197095 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.492 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 927.0 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.9 1.59920159681 119% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.4858260041 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.380952381 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8095238095 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.28571428571 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => 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: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.211348272355 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0666742407853 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0616150441953 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125401594025 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0640405687807 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.3 14.3799401198 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 22.75 48.3550499002 47% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 17.24 12.5979740519 137% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.51 8.32208582834 114% => OK
difficult_words: 150.0 98.500998004 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.