“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.
While it sounds reasonable to restore the weather and local news to its original level, the arguer's argument is actually based on some flawed assumptions which cannot be substantiated by the existing evidence. Also, he tries to justify his conclusion by establishing a link between the complaints and the cancellation of some business contracts, but the reasoning of his argument is not sound.
Though it is true that the television station has received many complaints concerning the coverage of weather and local news, the author mentions no additional information and details about it. It is highly possible that some viewers are not complaining about the increased time on weather and local news, but their poor quality. The author has to investigate further into that feedback and find out that if there are other possible explanations. For example, people could be complaining about the inaccuracy of weather prediction, or they are not satisfied with watching reports like a local farmer has grown a huge pumpkin, but in terms of the local gun shooting event, they would like to be informed of the lasted investigating process and know as much as possible. Considering circumstances like this, the author must provide solid evidence showing that what people do dissatisfied with is the time devoted to weather and local news, if he wants to persuade his colleagues. Further, he must prove that these complaints do not come from a single person or a few groups. The television should only take action if it proved that the programs are not the majority want.
Another huge fallacy in the author's argument is that he wrongly establishes a link between the complaints and the cancellation of the business contracts. It is possible that local businesses are facing a financial crisis, and considering the long-term development, they have decided to cut the budget allocated to advertising at this moment. If this is the case, then restoring the programs to its formal level will not turn their head around. Even if these companies are not suffering any economic problems, they could have decided to cancel the cooperation with the television station for many other reasons. For example, they could have found another television station that fits their needs better, or they have noticed that online advertising is way much beneficial an efficient than pouring money into television advertising. The author must convince us with unbiased and credible evidence indicating that neither these businesses are not short of budget, nor their positions are not swayed by other factors.
Finally, even the author can address the foregoing questions with new evidence, he cannot guarantee that restoring to what the programs used to be can attract the new audience or its former audience back, neither can he promise to the business companies that they will suffer no economic loss. Today, people are more inclined to watch videos online, through streaming media like Netflix. The television decided to make a change might just because they had realized that, and they wanted to avoid competition with websites like Netflix. After all, if everything went on well, why should people make a change?
To sum up, while the claims sound convincing, they fail to convince people for that they are not substantiated with sufficient evidence and thus become not sound when facing some important questions.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
----------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 550 350
No. of Characters: 2790 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.843 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.073 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.678 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 204 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.322 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.514 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 93, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguers'' or 'arguer's'?
Suggestion: arguers'; arguer's
...d local news to its original level, the arguers argument is actually based on some flaw...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 29, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ty want. Another huge fallacy in the authors argument is that he wrongly establishes...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, if, so, then, thus, well, while, after all, as to, for example, it is true, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 56.0 28.8173652695 194% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2853.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18727272727 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73204491572 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 273.0 204.123752495 134% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496363636364 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 881.1 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.0431690346 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.65 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.5 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.75 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.157409144817 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.05175015885 0.0743258471296 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.068632278703 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0777044691351 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0832751382611 0.0628817314937 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.