"Over the past year,our late night news program has been devoted increased time to the 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 weather and local news. In addition, local business that used to advertise during our late night news program have just canceled 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 explains how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The assumption that the author makes about restoring the weather and local news to its former level is based on several assumptions such as that complaints about the coverage of news, advertising contracts being cancelled and so on. Due to these assumptions, the argument is weakened. In the following sections, these assumptions have been elaborated along with the evidence which would strengthened the argument.
First of all, the weather and local news time had been reduced last year. Its been a year since the change and a lot of things might have been altered since then. Probably, now people might have switched from watching news to reading newspapers. Or perhaps, they now would like to listen to news while commuting on radios or podcasts. Had the author had provided us with semantics that the number of viewers or listeners in all the categories have been the same as of last year, then the argument would have been strengthened.
Secondly, the station had received many complaints regarding the coverage of weather and local news. No where it has been mentioned that these complaints had been regarding the reduced duration these set of news got in the late-night news program. The complaints could be about the inaccurate coverage about the local news or it can also be about the wrong prediction of the weather forecast. If the subject of these complaints had been mentioned in the argument, then we could conclude that increasing the time devoted to these news will be helpful or not. Without these evidences, the argument is weekend.
Next, the local business have cancelled their advertising contracts with the station. it could be because the nation would be facing a recession, or the local business have been on the verge of bankrupcy. it might also have been the case that the station would be costing them a fortune for the contract renewal and they have found another station willing to advertise their business at smaller amount. As the author hasn't presented us with any of the above facts, we cannot say that increasing the duration of weather and local news will be of any help to the station. Only with the knowledge of these situations, the argument be strengthened.
As the author hasn't given us the a comparison of last year and this year's situation, nor the subject of viewers' complaints and not about the contract renewal amount of the station, the argument is flimsy. Had the author provided us with all the facts and figures, the argument would be strengthened.
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 424 350
No. of Characters: 2036 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.538 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.802 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.529 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.556 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 14.423 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.556 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.167 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 13, column 102, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: Now
...the coverage of weather and local news. No where it has been mentioned that these ...
^^
Line 13, column 524, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this news' or 'these newses'?
Suggestion: this news; these newses
...ude that increasing the time devoted to these news will be helpful or not. Without these e...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 19, column 87, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...advertising contracts with the station. it could be because the nation would be fa...
^^
Line 19, column 206, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
...ss have been on the verge of bankrupcy. it might also have been the case that the ...
^^
Line 19, column 418, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
...siness at smaller amount. As the author hasnt presented us with any of the above fact...
^^^^^
Line 25, column 15, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
... be strengthened. As the author hasnt given us the a comparison of last year ...
^^^^^
Line 25, column 30, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'a' is left.
Suggestion: the; a
...d. As the author hasnt given us the a comparison of last year and this years ...
^^^^^
Line 25, column 69, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... the a comparison of last year and this years situation, nor the subject of viewers c...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, while, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2108.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 422.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99526066351 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53239876712 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61538385312 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.424170616114 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 622.8 705.55239521 88% => 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: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.7201100151 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.4 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.2 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 8.0 5.25449101796 152% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.277193357999 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0971260283562 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.076747419247 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.159393089947 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0673445682657 0.0628817314937 107% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.72 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.37 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 98.500998004 73% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.