“Over the past year, our late night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station’s coverage of local and weather news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news programs have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author of the memorandum asserts that the television stations should restore their time distributed for weather forecasts and local news to the former level in order to attract viewers to the program and preserve the current advertising revenues. The argument is supported by several evidence and assumptions stated and unstated in the paragraph, nevertherless the assumptions leave significant doubts and questions that need to be clarified. This essay will demonstrate specific evidence required in order to maintain his or her original stance.
Firstly, the author assumes that less proportions in weather and local news caused a significant rise of complaints. However, the assumption that the number of the complaints were crucial enough for consideration calls for additional evidence. If the numbers of complaints for weather and local news coverage had been only a handful amount, and if the total amount of complaints had in fact been reduced, then it is unlikely that viewers became unsatisfied with the change of coverage. That is, the author should have provided the absolute amount of complaints together with the information of the change in number during the past year. Thus, in order to hold up the assumption, additional evidence is required in terms of data.
Secondly, even though the author contends that the cancellation of local businesses was due to the decreased visibility of their advertisements, it is still not clear whether the cancellation was due to various other factors. For instance, if the local businesses had decided to cancel their contracts with the television station because of an abrupt change in coverage without any previous announements, then it may not be a clever idea to adjust the program once more. As long as credibility and confidence function as a crucial factor in terms of the contract relationship, the television business manager should have considered various elements in their way how to intrigue local businesses without losing credit. Thus, it is recommended that the memorandum provides additional data in regard to the various reasons of the contract cancelation.
Thirdly, the author rushes to the conclusion on the basis of the assumption that restoring the coverage to its former level shall be the best solution in order to recover the contracts and enhance viewers' satisfaction. However, it is doubtful whether the given proposal results indeed to positive outcomes. For, as I already mentioned above, hactic changes in the coverage of the news programs would lose stability and confidence. In addition, considering the importance of late-night news programs in terms of informing the viewers accurate contents of the news, the author should have paid more attention to the actual quality of the news being broadcasted. Thus, the proposal shall be supported by further evaluation in order to hold its soundness.
In conclusion, due to unsupported and misleading assumptions, the argument may easily fall into inaccurate predictions and judgements. The author should therefore be equipped with more specific evidence and detailed factors in terms of supporting his argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 492 350
No. of Characters: 2608 1500
No. of Different Words: 231 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.71 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.301 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.889 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 213 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.894 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.497 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.063 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 281, Rule ID: MANY_NN_U[8]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun evidence seems to be uncountable; consider using: 'some evidence'.
Suggestion: some evidence
... revenues. The argument is supported by several evidence and assumptions stated and unstated in ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 35, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun proportions is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...nce. Firstly, the author assumes that less proportions in weather and local news c...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, in regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2658.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 492.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.40243902439 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70967865282 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97093851212 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.487804878049 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 825.3 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
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: 59.6703316268 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.894736842 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8947368421 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.94736842105 5.70786347227 157% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.22878178297 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0637965718091 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0725341810917 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115040009515 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0666129839855 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 48.3550499002 78% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.37 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.