The editor of a local newspaper sent the following memo to the managing editor of the paper:
“Three years ago when we surveyed our subscribers, they complained about the quality of the reporting and writing in the paper. Since that time, we have made a concerted effort to hire older, more experienced journalists. According to our most recent survey, these changes have made a vast improvement. Not only has our subscriber base grown by 13%, but they also rated us higher on both reporting and writing. Therefore, it is evident that to continue to increase our readership, we should hire the most experienced journalists we can find, and gradually fire our younger, less experienced reporters."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation
The editors of the newspaper opinion that removing the younger,less experienced and gradually replacing them with journalists who have relatively higher experience to boost their overall readership is deeply flawed and needs to answer several questions to validate his recommendation.
Firstly the editor states that the subscribers complained about the quality of the reporting and writing in the news paper but does not present any evidence that the subscribers had an issue specifically with the articles written by young inexperienced journalists.Had the editor stated that the survey included specific questions regarding the particular essay or article the had not liked and mentioned that these articles were written.If he had mentioned such things in the memo then his recommendations could be considered.
Secondly the editor represents the growth of the readership in terms of a percentage but does not mention the actual growth in terms of numerical figures.If he had presented the growth in terms of number of readers rather than in percentages his recommendation stands a chance to be considered.
Third, the author of the memo does not show compelling evidence that the subscribers who were surveyed were randomly picked.He does not even provide the exact number of subscribers who were surveyed.Had he mentioned the number of subscribers who were surveyed out of the total subscribers his recommendation could be considered.
The editor suggests that the news paper should hire the most experienced journalists and fire the younger, less experienced reporters at gradual pace.The editors recommendation lacks answers to a lot of questions and they have to be answered before it is implemented.
Sentence: Had the editor stated that the survey included specific questions regarding the particular essay or article the had not liked and mentioned that these articles were written.
Description: The token the is not usually followed by a verb 'to have', past tense
Suggestion: Refer to the and had
flaws:
No. of Words: 270 350
No. of Different Words: 136 200
Put a space after punctuation marks. E-rater is sensitive.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 10 15
No. of Words: 270 350
No. of Characters: 1428 1500
No. of Different Words: 136 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.054 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.289 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.032 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 108 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 82 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.469 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.442 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.772 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.245 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5