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.
A business manager of a television station states on a memorandum that the reduction on viewership and advertisement contracts are due to the reduction of air time of local news and weather content. The conclusion of memorandum advocating for the the return of time devoted to weather and local news is based on spurious arguments. There is a need of more information on the complaints, what were the motivation for the advertisement contracts cancellations and media vehicles options to support or undermine the conclusion presented.
First of all, the managers states that complaints were mainly focused on the areas that had their time reduced. However, there is no information on the matter of those complaints: these could be due to the quality of local news and weather reporting, what is being covered on these segments and even that these two have very long air times. There is not enough information presented that links the reduction to the complaints. For this connection to be created, ancillary information is required: it is mandatory to understand what are the viewers are insatisfied about so that management can have a more direct approach. The insatisfaction could be on the reduced time of local news and weather, what would strengthen the conclusion presented on the memorandum. On the other hand, it could be related to the examples cited above or any other aspect of it, what would undermine the conclusion on the text. However, there is currently no data to support or dismiss the conclusion presented.
In addition to the complaints, the author cites cancellation of advertisements from local business as another reason to bring back local news and weather. This is problematic because there is no causality link proposed on the text. Business could be turning away from the television station due to several reasons. For instance, target demography is not a major audience of the late-night news, high fees to advertise on the program or change to internet based media vehicles. There is evidence lacking to define the real reason that led to that cancellation. There should be a survey with these business the previously adverted on the program to understand what caused the move. If the results showed that the main reason was the reduction of local news, the conclusion presented on the memorandum would be supported. However, if the results went on any other way, the author position would be weakened. Currently, there is no information that leads either way.
Lastly, in a more extreme position, viewers could be looking to something besides news and weather on television. The reduction stated on the text could be the product of a bigger movement from audience unrelated to what is being broadcasted on the program. Viewers could be turning to weather and news websites and ditching TV altogether. Thus, however the changes are on the composition of the program, it would not make the audience grow. To understand if there is any movement on that level, ancillary information is required on the habits of the targeted audience and what are the media vehicles they are using for their news and weather information. If the resulted prompeted a change on the direction of the internet, for example, the conclusion on the memorandum would be undermined.
In summary, there is not enough information to support the conclusions presented on the text. To strengthen or weaken the argument is necessary ancillary data on the matter of the complaints from the viewers, the reason from the local business to cancel their contracts and lastly, if their audience is shifting from other sources of news and weather information.
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 600 350
No. of Characters: 2989 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.949 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.82 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 214 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 182 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 127 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.222 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.925 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.472 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 244, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...conclusion of memorandum advocating for the the return of time devoted to weather and l...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 244, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...conclusion of memorandum advocating for the the return of time devoted to weather and l...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, first, however, if, lastly, look, so, then, thus, for example, for instance, in addition, in summary, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 42.0 19.6327345309 214% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 39.0 16.3942115768 238% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3064.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 600.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10666666667 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94923200384 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90309413481 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.383333333333 0.468620217663 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 954.0 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.99579402 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.481481481 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2222222222 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.25925925926 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.221588936119 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0659077865914 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0664622918461 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144172381724 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0304821311549 0.0628817314937 48% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => 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: 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.