“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.”
The presented argument appears to be relatively sound at the first glance. The complaints from viewers as well as cancellation of the advertisements from local businesses hint that the issue might be fixed with restoring the previous time schedule devoted to weather and local news. However, with closer inspection on the issue, it is quite obvious to see that the argument is rather unconvincing; given the fallacies in the logic.
Firstly, the argument assumes that the cancellation of advertisement from local businesses is due to less time dedicated to weather and local news. It isn't quite clear what led to such cancellation. The reason might be due to local business shifting to other form of advertising, and not merely due to less broadcasting of weather and local news. Hence, it would be quick to jump into this conclusion without doing a proper research on what led to such cancellation.
Secondly, the argument claims that the time duration of the local news and weather coverage is the reason for the complains. It is possible that the viewer's complaint about the coverage of weather and local news might not be for the duration of broadcasting. Even with increased time for the local news and weather, the viewers might not be pleased with the results; specifically if the problem lies in the way the news are presented or the quality and credibility of the news.
Similarly, the argument ignores the possibility of losing viewers from national news if the time devoted to national news is decreased. A larger dip in the viewers might occur while doing so, that would eventually lead to cancelling of even more advertising contracts. The argument fails to acknowledge the impact that would be caused on existing viewers of national news, if such restoration to previous time is applied.
Overall, the argument is not strong enough to conclude that increasing screen-time for local news and weather will guarantee in reducing the viewers' complaints, as well as stop the declining advertisement contracts. Before any final decisions are made about restoration of former timing, much work is left for the arguer to improve the logic and cogency of the argument. The argument can be strengthened by a proper research in finding out the root cause for such complaints and decline. This would help in developing a comparatively solid foundation for the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 392 350
No. of Characters: 1946 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.45 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.964 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.806 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.288 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.607 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.089 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 152, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...dedicated to weather and local news. It isnt quite clear what led to such cancellati...
^^^^
Line 3, column 416, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'proper research'.
Suggestion: proper research
...jump into this conclusion without doing a proper research on what led to such cancellation. Se...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 150, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'viewers'' or 'viewer's'?
Suggestion: viewers'; viewer's
... the complains. It is possible that the viewers complaint about the coverage of weather...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 408, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'proper research'.
Suggestion: proper research
...nt. The argument can be strengthened by a proper research in finding out the root cause for such ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ely solid foundation for the argument.
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, hence, however, if, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, well, while, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2001.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 391.0 441.139720559 89% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11764705882 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44676510885 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88073331294 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.445012787724 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 605.7 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.7985880895 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.705882353 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.76470588235 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.324121053251 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.124866186488 0.0743258471296 168% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.119473560328 0.0701772020484 170% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.211614909292 0.128457276422 165% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0784487639558 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.