Two years ago, radio station WCQP in Rockville decided to increase the number of call-in advice programs that it broadcast; since that time, its share of the radio audience in the Rockville listening area has increased significantly. Given WCQP's recent success with call-in advice programming, and citing a nationwide survey indicating that many radio listeners are quite interested in such programs, the station manager of KICK in Medway recommends that KICK include more call-in advice programs in an attempt to gain a larger audience share in its listening area.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The station manager of KICK argues that they should make use of more call-in advice programs to increase its audience base. He or she uses the WCQP’s success in doing so and a nationwide statistic that many listeners are interested in such programs. While this evidence is somewhat convincing, the manager has failed to address four questions that are crucial to assessing this recommendation.
Firstly, does a nationwide statistic apply to Medway’s population? While the manager assumes that it does, this may not necessarily hold true. For instance, it is possible that people in Medway are not at all interested in call-in advice programs. They may find such programs to be insipid and annoying. Instead, they perhaps may be interested in hearing about stories, news, gossip, or music. Without assessing this population’s interests (e.g. through a survey), one cannot truly determine if the results of nation-wide survey apply to Medway.
Similarly, the question of whether WCQP’s success story in Rockville would apply to KICK in Medway also arises. The prompt’s author adopts a facile approach as he/she assumes this to be true. Yet, this assumption may not hold water if the conditions that led to WCQP’s success are not replicated in both Medway and KICK’s audience. For instance, it is possible that mostly young people are interested in such programs. Perhaps, Medway’s population is more skewed towards seniors. Hence, it is possible that this program would be a debacle for KICK given Medway’s demographics. It is also possible that people in Medway are simply not interested in such a program. For example, their interests may lie in talk shows. Should these scenarios have any merit, then it would be imprudent to invest in such a program.
Furthermore, even if the previous two assumptions hold true, one must ask if KICK would be able to economically set up such a program. From the prompt, it seems the manager has not addressed the cost-side of investing in this program. Yet, this is a crucial aspect to any venture as several aspects must be considered. For instance, it is possible that KICK lacks the skillset to run such a program. If so, then the manager may have to hire more radiohosts and equipment. If the costs of running such a program exceed the benefits (i.e. increased revenue and larger audience base), it is hard to defend the manager’s recommendation.
Finally, are call-in advice programs the best way for KICK to increase its audience base? By assuming that they are, the manager seems to have adopted a parochial approach. However, it is important to be broad-minded and consider if other more lucrative ways to foster this base exist. To do so, this essay argues that the station should conduct a survey and ask its audience about their interests. Perhaps, the survey results would suggest that KICK should continue to invest more in what they are currently providing (e.g. talk shows, or sports-related content). Should this be the case, then this would likely be a more economical option compared to creating new call-in programs.
In summary, the manager’s argument, as it stands now, is flawed as it has failed to address key questions. Should the manager provide pertinent evidence regarding these questions, one can better assess the viability of his or her recommendation. Until then, it would be sagacious to not invest in the program given that the recommendation rests on several unwarranted assumptions.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 33 15
No. of Words: 570 350
No. of Characters: 2805 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.886 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.921 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.671 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 219 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 166 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.273 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.64 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.818 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.267 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.463 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 12, Rule ID: WHETHER[3]
Message: Wordiness: Shorten this phrase to the shortest possible suggestion.
Suggestion: whether; the question whether
... survey apply to Medway. Similarly, the question of whether WCQP’s success story in Rockville would...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...red to creating new call-in programs. In summary, the manager’s argument, as i...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, e.g., finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, regarding, similarly, so, then, while, for example, for instance, in summary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 59.0 28.8173652695 205% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2923.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 569.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13708260105 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.88402711743 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82545199037 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 257.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.451669595782 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 881.1 705.55239521 125% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 17.0 4.96107784431 343% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.9615915748 57.8364921388 52% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.5757575758 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.2424242424 23.324526521 74% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.57575757576 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.116604910872 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0346151969674 0.0743258471296 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0518836916721 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0715309598854 0.128457276422 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0424149121426 0.0628817314937 67% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 128.0 98.500998004 130% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.