The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station."To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth i

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The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station.

"To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth in our listening area, but that growth has resulted mainly from people moving here after their retirement. We must make listeners of these new residents. We could switch to a music format tailored to their tastes, but a continuing decline in local sales of recorded music suggests limited interest in music. Instead we should change to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

In the memorandum, the author presents the decision made by the owners of the WWAC radio station. This decision addresses the loss of listeners and the angle they intend to use to reverse this declining. Deeply analyzing the arguments presented, one can observe that they do not follow a completely logical path.

First, the author estipulate that the radio station has been losing listeners, but he does not present the data and numbers clarifying the time this loss started or how much listeners have they lost. Neither has he provided any sources about how they got to these results. In his first argument, the author says that this decline has occurred even after a population growth in the listening area, and then he justifies that this is due to that the growth is a result of people moving after their retirement. He assumes all these new members of the community do not like rock music, but he does not present any evidence to sustain this assumption. Without any type of survey, he could not know what type of music do the new residents like, and in what way are these tastes distributed.

Second, the author states that they need to make listeners out of these new residents. He then proposes that the solution could be switching to a music format that satisfies the new citizen’s taste, but his attempts are invalidated by the decline in local sales of recorded music, which he assumes reflex a limited interest in music, when in fact he would need to revise the other ways music is acquired by people. A few of these ways could be digital downloading, music streaming web pages, or delivering by online retailers such as amazon or ebay.

Finally, after he assumes that music is not in the interest of the new residents, he proposes changing to a news and talk format, a supposedly increasingly popular form of radio in their area, but he does not give any survey results to sustain this statement, nor he says what exact parts of the area are most interested in this format, which may not include the one they manage. Moreover, even when the part interested in this format included the area the WWAC serves, it does not guarantee that the new residents would like it or even listen to it. If the radio station is a rock music station, they could not be prepared to make these changes in a successful way.

To summarize, the author needs to provide solid evidence about the assumptions and substantiate his claims about people not having a limited interest in music, or a strong like of news and talk shows; otherwise the owner’s decision could be in danger of failing.

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Average: 6 (1 vote)
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the author estipulate that
the author stipulates that

Sentence: First, the author estipulate that the radio station has been losing listeners, but he does not present the data and numbers clarifying the time this loss started or how much listeners have they lost.
Error: estipulate Suggestion: stipulate

argument 1 -- not exactly. You need to find out a loophole from the data they provided; you should not try to ask for extra data and suppose they are loopholes like:

'but he does not present the data and numbers clarifying the time this loss started or how much listeners have they lost. Neither has he provided any sources about how they got to these results.'. You have this issue in other essays.

This is the correct way:
'The first piece of evidence that author provide is the increase in the population growth which mainly consists of retired people. However, the author has not given any evidence about those people's choice and interest. A detailed survey should have been organized asking them about what they like music or news and talks ? If majority of the people support for music then obviously author's stand is not convincing.'

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 454 350
No. of Characters: 2082 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.616 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.586 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.395 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 65 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.267 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.939 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.596 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.173 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5