The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.
"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 period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument that the television station should restore time devoted to weather and local news to its former level to attract more viewers and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues is not logically convincing since it suffers from poor vocabulary and since it ignores certain crucial assumptions.
First, the argument said that there are recieved complanints about the coverage of of weather and local news. However the station manager did not quantify how many are these complaints? How many viewers have been watching that late-night program before increasing national news time and how many are watching it now after that increase?
Second, the argument suffers from poor voabulary in its word "Over the last year" since it did not mention exactly when was that change exactly and when was the noticed decrease in the number of viewers and the claimed increase in complaints. Ignoring dates quantification makes it very difficult to establish a correlation between the increase in the national news time and the decrease in the number of viewers complaints.
Finally, the argument assumes that the advertising businesses cancelled the contracts because of the increase in the national news time. This can not be necessarily true. There could have been other reasons like existence of another TV station that offer cheaper advertisement times or like any other reason. The manager had better prepare a study for all the possible reasons that could have made the advertising company cancel the contract.
Thus, the argument is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion that the viewers complained and were concerned about the weather and local news does little to prove the conclusion.
Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened if the manager quantified clearly the number of viewers before and after the TV programs times change, if he has quantified the date of changing TV programs times and the date of the noticed decline in the number of viewers, if has prepared a sort of study about all the possible reasons for cancelling the contract of the advertising company from their side.
Sentence: First, the argument said that there are recieved complanints about the coverage of of weather and local news.
Description: The token of is not usually followed by a preposition
Suggestion: Refer to of and of
Sentence: Ignoring dates quantification makes it very difficult to establish a correlation between the increase in the national news time and the decrease in the number of viewers complaints.
Description: A noun, plural, common is not usually followed by a noun, plural, common
Suggestion: Refer to viewers and complaints
Sentence: Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened if the manager quantified clearly the number of viewers before and after the TV programs times change, if he has quantified the date of changing TV programs times and the date of the noticed decline in the number of viewers, if has prepared a sort of study about all the possible reasons for cancelling the contract of the advertising company from their side.
Description: A noun, plural, common is not usually followed by a noun, plural, common
Suggestion: Refer to programs and times
Sentence: First, the argument said that there are recieved complanints about the coverage of of weather and local news.
Error: complanints Suggestion: complaints
Error: recieved Suggestion: received
Sentence: Second, the argument suffers from poor voabulary in its word 'Over the last year' since it did not mention exactly when was that change exactly and when was the noticed decrease in the number of viewers and the claimed increase in complaints.
Error: voabulary Suggestion: vocabulary
flaws:
No. of Different Words: 161 200
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 345 350
No. of Characters: 1763 1500
No. of Different Words: 161 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.31 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.11 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.598 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 115 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.538 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 17.028 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.462 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.674 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.116 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5