“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 business manager argues that the loss of advertising revenues and viewers is due to the fact of lack of screen time to weather and local news during late-night programs. While the arguments can be true, the reasons provided by the manager are not enough to come to a staunch conclusion. The manager refers to the complaints they have received from their viewers and dwindling of advertisements as an indicator for people's discontentment on the lack of weather and local news. Following are some unanswered questions, if provided with strong evidence, can help the manager to make his argument a valid one.
The manager mentions that since the past year, the late-night news program has devoted more time to national news and less time to weather and local news. The argument does not provide us with the reason for which this change was made in the past year. It can be true that in the past years the station had received a bunch of complaints stating the lack of national news during the same time. The station acting on it allotted the national news segment the position of weather news. It is necessary to know the purpose behind the change of news in the previous year so as to not duplicate the mistakes which have happened before.
Secondly, the Manager in his argument states the reason for the local businesses, which use to advertise on their late-night programs and are now canceling their contracts, as the lack of weather news and local news in that time segment. Now, the author does not provide us with statements from the local businesses stating the same and just predicts that this might be the case. It can also be possible that there are other reasons for the businesses to pull out from their advertising contracts like not seeing any growth in their businesses despite heavy advertising. It can also be possible that they have found a better deal at other television stations which is more lucrative for them. Putting the blame of the decline of the advertisements directly on the lack of weather news on station seems ludicrous if not provided with statements of the business stating the same.
Another thing is, the argument says that in order to attract more viewers and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues it should restore the time devoted to the weather and local news to its former level. This can backfire because of the viewers of national news which is currently being covered on the channel. If the number of viewers who watches the late-night show just to know about the national news is appreciable then changing its position can lead to a further loss for the television station. To be able to assure the attraction of more viewers the argument needs to provide with statistical data on the number of viewers who currently enjoy watching the national news and compare it to the complaints it has received about the reverse.
These are some questions which require answering or relevant evidence so as to strengthen the argument. If the argument is able to provide with the relevant answers then it can be safe to blame the decline of the number of viewers and advertisements on the lack of coverage of weather and local news on the night-show news.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 20 15
No. of Words: 553 350
No. of Characters: 2617 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.849 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.732 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.534 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 179 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.65 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.995 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.127 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 568, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...the change of news in the previous year so as to not duplicate the mistakes which have h...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 89, Rule ID: USE_TO_VERB[1]
Message: Did you mean 'used'?
Suggestion: used
... reason for the local businesses, which use to advertise on their late-night progra...
^^^
Line 9, column 71, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
... require answering or relevant evidence so as to strengthen the argument. If the argumen...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, if, second, secondly, so, then, while, another thing, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 88.0 55.5748502994 158% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2661.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 553.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.81193490054 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84932490483 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56628587208 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.388788426763 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 824.4 705.55239521 117% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.310797877 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.05 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.65 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.25 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.382157477476 0.218282227539 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.146074131583 0.0743258471296 197% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.124138896675 0.0701772020484 177% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.250358141411 0.128457276422 195% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.119204947853 0.0628817314937 190% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.72 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.