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 business manager of a television station claims that the news programs should expand the coverage of weather and local news, and suggests several claims that seem to uphold the author's claim. However, the memorandum is rife with holes and assumptions, which need to be eliminated in order for the author to maintain his/her claim with clear warrant. Such flaws will be discussed with further details below.
First of all, the author needs to clarify exactly how many complaints and from who the news program received. For example, even though being unsatisfied with the coverage may be the majority, if there were only five complaints in total among thousands of viewers, the amount would be negligible enough. Also, maybe the number of complaints actually decreased compared to prior years. The author would have to provide information about whether the complaints had actually increased after the alteration. Moreover, maybe the complaints were able to be filed anonymously. Only one viewer who likes receiving attention could have been providing the complaints multiple times. If so, then receiving a number of complaints would be unreliable to represent the whole viewers.
Furthermore, the author needs to elucidate about the content of the complaints. They might have been about being unsatisfied with less devotion to the national news instead of to weather and local news. Maybe some of the countries are currently in war and people are enticed in listening to news about the war instead of listening to the local news. There is also a possibility that the other news programs aired in different times do not have any national news section and consequently, the late-night viewers watched the late-night news particularly for that national news section. They could have been asking for more devotion in the national news by filing complaints.
Secondly, the author assumes that less viewers must have been attracted to the news program because the advertising contracts are getting canceled. However, there could be various reasons to the cancellation. Maybe the advertising businesses did not have enough money to afford the contract fee and had to retract. Their products may not have been intriguing enough to attract many customers and had to curtail their budget in advertising. Or, maybe they recently developed a product that is more suitable for day-time viewers. If they are advertising baby products targeting young mothers, then it would be apropos to change the time in advertisement from late-night to daytime.
Last but not least, the author assumes that altering the coverage of weather and local news would attract more viewers. However, this is clearly founded from a wrong premise. With the advancement in technology, people could have adapted a new method of watching the news. Majority of the people might prefer watching the news online anytime and anywhere they desire, instead of having to turn on the television on a specific time, because it is much more expedient. If so, then the author would have to be discerned with expanding the business to developing online platforms instead of being concerned with altering the coverage of the local and weather news.
To sum up, even though the business manager's claim might seem plausible, through thorough investigation and reading the memorandum from various points of view, it is confirmed that the author's claim is clearly unwarranted. In order for the author to maintain his/her claim with warrant, he/she would have to eliminate the flaws of making haste assumptions, providing lack of clear and substantial information, and conducting lack of thorough investigation.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 209, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...ead of to weather and local news. Maybe some of the countries are currently in war and peop...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 35, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun viewers is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...nts. Secondly, the author assumes that less viewers must have been attracted to the...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, first, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, for example, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.5258426966 154% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.4196629213 161% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 14.8657303371 108% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 11.3162921348 97% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 33.0505617978 76% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 58.6224719101 140% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 12.9106741573 108% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3076.0 2235.4752809 138% => OK
No of words: 584.0 442.535393258 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26712328767 5.05705443957 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91590194646 4.55969084622 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72529375066 2.79657885939 97% => OK
Unique words: 259.0 215.323595506 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443493150685 0.4932671777 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 932.4 704.065955056 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 6.24550561798 96% => OK
Article: 9.0 4.99550561798 180% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 3.10617977528 225% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.38483146067 114% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 20.2370786517 138% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 23.0359550562 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.7887496772 60.3974514979 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.857142857 118.986275619 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8571428571 23.4991977007 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.25 5.21951772744 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.2758426966 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 5.13820224719 195% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.83258426966 166% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.297547364488 0.243740707755 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0831244493323 0.0831039109588 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0856818641302 0.0758088955206 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.158657469619 0.150359130593 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.099553436341 0.0667264976115 149% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.1392134831 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.8420337079 105% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.1743820225 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.1639044944 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.38706741573 100% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 100.480337079 139% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 11.8971910112 92% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.2143820225 89% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.7820224719 119% => 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.