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 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 asssistant 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.
In a memo directed to the head of studio, the movie producer requested for an increase in funding for a partiuclar title based on the evidence that the director of the movie, being a first time director is inexperienced. He also claimed that the cost reduction on employing inexperienced assistant will be offset by the need to pay overtime for other member of the crew. While the movie producer conclusion might hold water, it certainly relied on the following three unwarranted assumptions, which if not properly addressed may significantly weaken the request made by the producer.
First of all, the movie producer assumed that because the director is directing his first movie, his experience in diirecting commercials will informed his decision in a negative direction to directing a movie. What if the director have undergone a significant training on directing a movie prior to accepring the job offer, certainly, this will inform his plan in directing the Working Title and thus save resources from excessive wastage. it is also possible that, while this may be the first movie director will spearhead, he may have hard ample opportunities to serve as an assistant director on other major movie productions. If the above scenarios were to prove through, then the conclusion of the movie producer will be significantly weakened.
Secondly, the producer also wrongly assumed that the arrangement of sets may result in extra time from the movie assistants and thus result in extra cost incured. Perhaps the set arrangement would have been preset before the actors arrived and hence no delayed shooting of the film will be incur. It is also possible that the scene to be shoot only requires real life settings of which no significant arrangement will be required. In such a scenarios, the assistant may only need to focus on preparing the actors for their lines and even facilitate and expedite things beyond what the producer envisage. If the instances above were to hold true, then the producers request will be significantly weakened.
Finally, even if the above scennarios were to be proven false, the producer unjustifiedly assumed that the ten percent increase will be enough to underwrite the excess of the movie director. Perhaps, the director is so used to profligate spending that double the extra may not even be sufficient for the wastage. It may be possible that the assistants will even require more time to prepare the set thereby resulting in wastage. if this were to be true then definitely the movie producer will be blame and his assertion significantly altered.
In conclusion, while the Movie Producer request might hold water, it relies on unjustified assumptions in making such request and as such, render the argument significantly weakened. If the producer can include more evidence which substantiates his request in the memo, if he his able to support the assumptions above with a cogent evidence, then the request can be properly evaluated.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 10 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 487 350
No. of Characters: 2442 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.698 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.014 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.791 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.438 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.827 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 1 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.6 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.133 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 75, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...studio, the movie producer requested for an increase in funding for a partiuclar ...
^^
Line 1, column 289, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ost reduction on employing inexperienced assistant will be offset by the need to ...
^^
Line 1, column 502, Rule ID: IF_IS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...ng three unwarranted assumptions, which if not properly addressed may significantl...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n the request made by the producer. First of all, the movie producer assumed...
^^^^
Line 3, column 148, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'inform'
Suggestion: inform
...perience in diirecting commercials will informed his decision in a negative direction to...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 447, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
... save resources from excessive wastage. it is also possible that, while this may b...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ucer will be significantly weakened. Secondly, the producer also wrongly assu...
^^^^
Line 5, column 294, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... no delayed shooting of the film will be incur. It is also possible that the scen...
^^
Line 5, column 445, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'a scenario' or simply 'scenarios'?
Suggestion: a scenario; scenarios
...t arrangement will be required. In such a scenarios, the assistant may only need to focus o...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uest will be significantly weakened. Finally, even if the above scennarios we...
^^^
Line 7, column 433, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: If
...e the set thereby resulting in wastage. if this were to be true then definitely th...
^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...d his assertion significantly altered. In conclusion, while the Movie Produc...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2500.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 487.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13347022587 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69766713281 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86035855426 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.435318275154 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 799.2 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.865482431 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.888888889 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0555555556 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.88888888889 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 12.0 5.25449101796 228% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.216519351085 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0822739016959 0.0743258471296 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0710413270753 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139876880793 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0706881806742 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => 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: 12.77 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => 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?
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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.