A movie producer sent the following memo to the head of the movie studio:
"We need to increase the funding for the movie Working Title by 10% in order to ensure a quality product. As you know, we are working with a first-time director, whose only previous experience has been shooting commercials for a shampoo company. Since the advertising business is notoriously wasteful, it stands to reason that our director will expect to be able to shoot take after take, without concern for how much time is being spent on any one scene. In addition, while we have saved money by hiring relatively inexperienced assistant producers and directors, this savings in salary will undoubtedly translate to greater expenditures in paying the actors and unionized crew overtime for the extra hours they will spend on the set waiting for the assistant directors and producers to arrange things. If we don't get this extra money, the movie is virtually assured to be a failure."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
As desperately as the producer is asking for receiving an extra fund, he could not manage, however, to put on a compelling argument to increase the movie's funds. Firstly building upon the verdant nature of the director and the anecdotal assessment of his background, the author then gave only a partial and hazy overview of the different factors likely to affect the work's budget.
First of all, what seems as a principal premise of his argument is how he appraises the competency of the director. While he did give a brief view of his previous work, albeit sarcastically, there was not any other mention of, say, his education, upbringing, family, or biographical details in general. In fact, such depiction of the director would make the reader question why he was employed in the first place, especially with the author later citing cost as the reason while paradoxically asking to increase it. In this context, the possibility that the director would benefit from the experience of other persons on the team such that his shortcomings would be offset also seems to be overlooked by the author.
Moving on to the producer's drawing of the financial situation, it may be reasonable to question whether the budget would even out with the money saved in salaries being spent in the expected extra takes. This question seems to be answered by the producer by a mere proof by assertion. Unless more details are known about how the increased expenditures would exceed the spared costs, it would be difficult to allocate the funds.
Moreover, the role of management and coordination was nearly absent in the producer's discussion. That is, the different factors were solely laid out and their impacts passively extrapolated, which assumes there would not be a reasonable kind of active intervention that ensures the best possible utilization of both the financial and human sources of the art project. Finally, even if the cost turns out to be more than previously expected, a projection of the revenues from the movie will still be necessary to evaluate a final cost/benefit ratio.
In conclusion, the author apparently builds a weak case for the request of additional funds for the movie. This firstly manifests in the cherry-picking of the director's repertoire and the subjective tone in its discussion, and then repeats itself in the hasty review of the overall monetary environment. So long as these assumptions remain unproven, there will not be enough credibility to fulfill the producer's request and proper investigation will be needed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 76, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'producers'' or 'producer's'?
Suggestion: producers'; producer's
...d coordination was nearly absent in the producers discussion. That is, the different fact...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 160, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
... manifests in the cherry-picking of the directors repertoire and the subjective tone in i...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, moreover, so, still, then, while, in conclusion, in fact, in general, kind of, first of all, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2133.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1028708134 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88423199701 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.55980861244 0.468620217663 119% => 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: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.8120720564 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.2 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.8666666667 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.8666666667 5.70786347227 208% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.139768609204 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0475815306376 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0346999238433 0.0701772020484 49% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0822005997017 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0476646276488 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.55 8.32208582834 115% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.