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 period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled 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 our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
The business manager recommends that to avoid losing advertising revenue and viewers' attraction they should cover local and weather news in all their programs. To support this idea he cites the following facts which are (1) most of the complaints were about the shortage of local and weather news (2)local businesses have canceled their advertising contracts with them. However, due to proper logical explanation and doubtful remarks this standpoint does not seem valid.
First of all, the manager assumes that the local businesses have canceled their contract due to lack of weather and local news in late night. However, it is entirely possible that poor management, the high cost of contracts might be the reason for this situation. Moreover, local businesses may have got enough popularity that they don't want to advertise anymore. If either of these scenarios has merit then the conclusion drawn in the argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the recommendation of expanding the coverage of local and weather news in all news programs does not seem valid due to some reasons. First of all, people might not like watching news of the same topic all the time. This can create a bad impression. instead of attracting more viewers, this step might decrease the amount of viewers. Again if they do so, the views who like national news more might start complaining. If the above is true, the argument does not hold water.
Thirdly, the argument unfairly infres from the fact that these complaints will be constant for a very long time if they continue to cover national news. It is entirely possible that the demand for local and weather news for the late-night viewers is seasonal. This may eventually change after some time. Without ruling out this assumption, the manager can not substantiate the argument.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed due to its reliance on some unwarranted assumptions. To evaluate the recommendation properly the manager has to rule out these assumptions with proper justification.
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: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 333 350
No. of Characters: 1666 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.272 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.003 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.659 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.14 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.542 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 333, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ay have got enough popularity that they dont want to advertise anymore. If either of...
^^^^
Line 3, column 365, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...at they dont want to advertise anymore. If either of these scenarios has merit the...
^^
Line 5, column 260, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Instead
...time. This can create a bad impression. instead of attracting more viewers, this step m...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, as to, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1716.0 2260.96107784 76% => OK
No of words: 332.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1686746988 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.2685907696 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74146030192 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.536144578313 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 518.4 705.55239521 73% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.8855574606 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.3157894737 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.4736842105 23.324526521 75% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.94736842105 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.295163571337 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0854576089197 0.0743258471296 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0812046205027 0.0701772020484 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160742818951 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0849412273389 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.7 14.3799401198 81% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.41 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.