"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 of the television station is convinced that the time spent on weather and local news should be increased back to its previous level. Based on the complaints received and the recent loss of advertising revenue from local businesses, the author suggests that the restoration will prevent further declines and increase the viewer base. However, although the argument may appear credible and logical at first sight, a closer evalution demonstrates that the author's claims are replete with assumption and holes. Until further evidence is substantiated and evaluated, it is difficult to ascertain that the a rise in the time spent on local news and the weather will lead to the benefits the author maintains.
First, the author uses the fact that the station received complaints about the coverage of stories to demonstrate the dissatisfaction of the viewers. In addition, the negative feedback implicitly serves as a reflection of general consensus of all viewers. However, the author does not clarify exactly how many and what the viewers were concerned about. The exact number and details about the complaints will help us determine the validity of the argument. For example, if only three complaints were submitted to the station and two were about the coverage, the complaints itself will not be a good indicator about the opinions of those who watch news at the channel. Furthermore, we need to know exactly what people were concerned about. The author implies that the viewers were concerned that the coverage of weather and local news was too low. However, we need to precisely if this worry was about whether the coverage was too low or too high. It could be that those who submitted their opinions were against the high coverage of local news. If so, the author's argument that we should raise the amount of time spent on rural news should be questioned because more would be unfavorable towards the decision. Such detailed information about the content and the quantity of complaints will make the argument more or less cogent.
Secondly, the decline in advertising revenues is mentioned as a reason to increase coverage of local news and the weather. However, why the companies canceled their contracts is still ambiguous. The author suggests that the companies no longer pay for their commercials because of the lower coverage. However, there may be other reasons that they have done so. For instance, the regional corporatations may have realized that social media advertising is a more effective way to market their products than television advertising. Given their small budget for marketing, they may have chosen to allocate their budgets on Instagram advertising rather than the advertising at the station. Thus, even if the stations spends more time on local news, the companies will not contract with the station again because they chose social media advertising rather than televsion advertising. Further explanations on why the companies decided to end their contract will be needed to evaluate the feasibility of restoration of local coverage.
Thirdly, even if the reason why companies chose not to contract with the station was due to the decline in the allocation of local news, it is not clear if there were additional revenues from the increase in national coverage that made up for the loss. The author states that devoting more time on local news will prevent loss in further advertising revenues. Yet, the author only includes details about the local companies in his argument. To fully determine whether the decision to devote more time will hinder additional revenue declines, we need to know if there were national corporates who have newly contracted with the television station. For example, with the growth in time spent on news about the country, bigger companies that operate nationally or even globally may be interested in the television station. If they contract with the station, it may actually earn more than the loss in the local television.
In conclusion, restoring the time on weather and local news may in fact attract more viewers and hinder further loss in revenues. However, as the author's argument stands, it is unable to withstand rebuttal. Detailed evidence, such as the amount of complaints and why companies no longer contract, will enhance the validity of the author's argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 32 15
No. of Words: 707 350
No. of Characters: 3581 1500
No. of Different Words: 264 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.156 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.065 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.618 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 264 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 220 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 154 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 81 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.094 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.048 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.308 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.473 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 618, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'a' is left.
Suggestion: the; a
...ated, it is difficult to ascertain that the a rise in the time spent on local news an...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 223, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'consensus'.
Suggestion: consensus
...ck implicitly serves as a reflection of general consensus of all viewers. However, the author doe...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1056, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...high coverage of local news. If so, the authors argument that we should raise the amoun...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 147, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rther loss in revenues. However, as the authors argument stands, it is unable to withst...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 331, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...tract, will enhance the validity of the authors argument.
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, third, thirdly, thus, as to, for example, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, in fact, such as, more or less
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 25.0 12.9520958084 193% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 29.0 16.3942115768 177% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3658.0 2260.96107784 162% => OK
No of words: 707.0 441.139720559 160% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.17397454031 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.15649799773 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68933825079 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 276.0 204.123752495 135% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.390381895332 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1141.2 705.55239521 162% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 32.0 19.7664670659 162% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.4730906508 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.3125 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.09375 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.125 5.70786347227 107% => 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 : 16.0 6.88822355289 232% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.288388153066 0.218282227539 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0888255386306 0.0743258471296 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0813202879034 0.0701772020484 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.186469970108 0.128457276422 145% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0561839759974 0.0628817314937 89% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => 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: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 150.0 98.500998004 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => 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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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.