"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increasingly more time to covering national news and less time to covering weather and local news. During the same time period, most of the complaints we received from viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, several local businesses that used to run advertisements during our late-night news program have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
According to the prompt, business manager asserts that television channel should revert to devote more time to weather & local news and lesser time to late-night national news. Manager bases this on the assumption that, since time allocated for national news has increased complaints from viewers were related to coverage of weather and local news. Moreover, she states that advertisers have also canceled their contract who previously used to advertise on late-night news program. However, before this argument can be analyzed two peices of evidence are required.
Firstly, business manager assumes that local business have canceled their contract since the increased focus is being given to national news. But she doesn't elucidates whether any other reasons are equally likely. Perhaps, it can be the case that local businesses left advertising on channel because of better offers that competitive channels were providing to them. Moreover, it can be the case that news anchors which used to keep audience enthralled with their proper elocution of news have joined other channels and therby swaying away advertisers along with them to competitive channel. If any of the above instances comes true, then the position made by the manager doesn't hold water.
Secondly, its not clear whether the circumstances that made people watch local news last year still persist. Business manager assumes that more time for weather and local news which brought large viewer ship last year will repeat at current time as well. It can be the case, that a particular incident like crime mystery which was local to city or some local election might have made people to watch local news last year, but after a year as there migth not be anything that interesting going on so it is possible that allocating more time to local weather and local news would not lead to increase in viewership. If this case is true, then the claim made by the manager that allocating more time to local news will attract viewership is false.
Thirdly, manager mentions that compaints recieved from viewer were mostly concerned with coverage of weather and local news, but it doesn't clearifies what were the complains. Perhaps, it can be the case that complaints were mostly bad reviews directing channel to shut down waether an local news once and for all. Or it can be the case thatthey might be complaining about assigning entirely different time to weather and local news unlike the night time as mentioned in the prompt. If such is the case, then saying that allocating more late night time to local and weather news will attract viewership is totally wrong.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is significantly flawed due to its reliance on several unstated assumptions. It the answer to above assumptions is provided by the business manager and perhaps a study is conducted to analyze them, then the position made in this argument can be properly analyzed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 486 350
No. of Characters: 2408 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.695 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.955 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.465 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.579 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.184 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.378 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.581 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.178 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 151, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...s being given to national news. But she doesnt elucidates whether any other reasons ar...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 613, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'instances'' or 'instance's'?
Suggestion: instances'; instance's
...ompetitive channel. If any of the above instances comes true, then the position made by t...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 673, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
..., then the position made by the manager doesnt hold water. Secondly, its not clear ...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 133, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...erage of weather and local news, but it doesnt clearifies what were the complains. Per...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 283, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
... directing channel to shut down waether an local news once and for all. Or it can ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, then, third, thirdly, well, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2462.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 483.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09730848861 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50561489533 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.469979296066 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 769.5 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.3250658798 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.578947368 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4210526316 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.31578947368 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.383966929684 0.218282227539 176% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.141824806978 0.0743258471296 191% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.117903957967 0.0701772020484 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.234103188922 0.128457276422 182% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.154510237861 0.0628817314937 246% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => 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: 12.6 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.