"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 memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company, it has been suggested that the Super Screen should allocate a bigger share of its budget next year for advertising to reach the public. The director came to this conclusion based on the recent report from the marketing department which shows that fewer people attended the Super-Screen produced movies than any other year but the number of positive reviews increased. The argument seems valid at first but as we look deeper into it, we find many flaws. To commnent on the resonability of the argument, three questions need to be answered.
Are fewer people attending the Sun Screen produced movies due to lack of awareness? It is possible that the Super Screen only released one movie this year, leading to a drop in the overall number of people watching their movies. It is also possible that the Sun Screen reduced the number of theatres which show their movies, making them inaccessible to a lot of people and hence leading to a decrease in the number of viewers. If the above scenarios are true, the conclusion of the argument is not valid.
Are the comments accurate enough to decide the quality of the movies? It is possible that most of the people who watched the movie and did not like it, did not take out the time to write a review. It is also possible that most of the positive reviews were only about one film. It might also be true that a single user commented multiple times, leading to increase in the number of positive reviews. If any of the above scenarios hold true, the conlusion of the argument is significantly weakened.
Are the reviews not reaching people? It is possible that the reviews are already reaching people and they are aware of the quality of the movies but do not watch them due to the high prices charged by the theatres. It is also possible that the movies were released to the theatres where the ambience and seating arrangements are not good. If either of the above scenarios is true, the argument does not hold water.
The argument, as it stands, is significantly flawed due to its reliance on many unstated assumptions. It can be strengthened if the director answers the three questions and provides more information about the number of movies released, the reachability of the reviews (in the form of statistics) and the conditions of the theatres they are relased in.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 1944 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.651 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.521 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 95 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.141 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.145 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 278, 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.
...itive reviews were only about one film. It might also be true that a single user c...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, if, look, so, then
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1996.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.77511961722 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57374909966 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 184.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.44019138756 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 628.2 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.9894727607 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.052631579 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.26315789474 5.70786347227 40% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.303246395705 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0872746891088 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.129074758407 0.0701772020484 184% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162081835326 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.153352152261 0.0628817314937 244% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.1 14.3799401198 84% => 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: 10.44 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.86 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => 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: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.