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."
The director of advertising department of the Super Screen Movie contends that the company should allocate a great share of its next year budget on advertising by suggesting that there are a contradictory situation in reports: while people attended to Super Screen-produced movies decreased last year, the positive commentaries rise instead. Although the speacker'a argument is seeming plausible, he still fails to take more possibilities into account and some holes could be found on his cited evidence.
First of all, the director mentions a recent report which telling him that the attendence people in last is the least compared with any other year. Here, the report's accuraty is problematic, because if the movie company is large and have several cinemas, its report could be conducted by investgating some cinemas and generalize the wholescale situation. Such methodology is surely used in academic world, but there is no information tells us how to judge such report's effectiveness. Furthermore, even such report reflects exact situation, we still do not know the timeness of this report and reports from any other time. For example, recent report was introducing the director information about the first two seasons while other reports show statistics in a whole year, so at this situation, we should not compare those reports in that the last two season might the high song of wathing movies.
Secondly, the director uses percentage of positive reviews to try to convince the company that movies produced by them are excellent. However, the percentage means nothing, in other words, when the basic number is not big enough, using percentage as an evidence is tenuous. There are two movies, for example, one of which is watched and rated by one hundred people while the another is watched and rated by ten people, and the respective prportion of positive rating are 90% and 95%. So can we conclude that the latter one is definitely better than the former? Obviously the answer is no, because the first movie was judged by more people and still show a competitive score, though its percentage is ostensibly weaker.
Thirdly, the author connot conclude from two evidence rife with holes, and even the two evidence are right and clear, it is unreasonable to eliminate other factors. Another factor affecting the strange situation could also be the problem of solid facility. The cinemas' facility will prevent viewers from attending even though movies there are great. And there is also no information telling us that the advertising outcome in other time is not great. If the advertising outcome was already great but still have a few watchers, the problem should not lie in the advertisement.
To sum up, the author's argument is seemingly reasonable, but when take a closer view, holes containing within the logic and evidence are revealed. To strengthen his argument, more solid evidence should be cited and more research about other possibilities should be conducted.
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: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 484 350
No. of Characters: 2439 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.69 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.039 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.685 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.474 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.821 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.895 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.538 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.141 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 206, Rule ID: THERE_RE_MANY[3]
Message: Possible agreement error. Did you mean 'situations'?
Suggestion: situations
...ggesting that there are a contradictory situation in reports: while people attended to Su...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 375, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...nstead. Although the speackera argument is seeming plausible, he still fails to take more ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 262, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cinemas'' or 'cinema's'?
Suggestion: cinemas'; cinema's
...o be the problem of solid facility. The cinemas facility will prevent viewers from atte...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 16, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...in the advertisement. To sum up, the authors argument is seemingly reasonable, but w...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, third, thirdly, while, for example, first of all, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2504.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 483.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18426501035 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75424268005 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.498964803313 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 796.5 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.8759936837 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.789473684 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4210526316 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.10526315789 5.70786347227 142% => 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 : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.239300171726 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0661473329643 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.081939361589 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121173353526 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0880440059317 0.0628817314937 140% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.