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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
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.
There are four key pieces of evidence needed in order to evaluate this argument: the trend in number of viewers during the time period where national news had been an increased topic, the trend in overall advertising revenue of the news program for the same period, the total number of complaints over the time the news program has been running, and the content of said complaints.
In the beginning of the argument, the business manager states that "most" viewer complaints concerned coverage of weather and local news. The first piece of evidence needed to support this is the number of complaints and how this has changed over time. If there were ten complaints a week before the show started focusing on national news and three complaints a week after, then the majority of complaints could mean only two complaints a week. If this situation were the case, then the overall number of complaints has declined and it weakens the argument that the program should return more time to weather and local news. If the number of complaints increased overall, this would strengthen the argument.
The manager is also vague as to the message of the complaints. He states that the complaints "concerned [the station's] coverage of weather and local news." He never states what specifically they are complaining about. It is possible the complaints are mostly about weather and local news being on there at all, showing that viewers want it to be all national news. This would weaken the argument that the manager is making. Complaints that there is not enough time devoted to local news and weather would strengthen the argument.
Local businesses cancelling their advertising contracts is another point the manager makes in his argument. It is never said what the trend of ad revenue has been over the period of time that the show had been running. If the revenue has decreased overall due to these cancellations, the manager's argument would be supported. It is possible, however, that larger companies are now advertising during the news show. This would increase the show's overall advertising revenue and weaken the argument that the manager is making.
The final piece of information the manager does not relay was the trend in number of viewers during the show. If there is a negative trend now that local news and weather are not the focus of the program, the argument is stronger. If there is a positive trend, showing that more viewers are interested in national news, the manager's argument is much weaker. If more viewers prefer national news, then the show is most likely making more money than it did when it spent more time on local news and weather.
The argument made was missing four pieces of evidence: number and content of complaints made about the show, overall advertising rvenue trend, and viewer trend. With these key items of evidence, the manager's argument could be made considerably stronger or weakened to being pointless.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 636, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...rn more time to weather and local news. If the number of complaints increased over...
^^
Line 4, column 174, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...e trend of ad revenue has been over the period of time that the show had been running. If the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 290, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...overall due to these cancellations, the managers argument would be supported. It is poss...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 325, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...rs are interested in national news, the managers argument is much weaker. If more viewer...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 359, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
..., the managers argument is much weaker. If more viewers prefer national news, then...
^^
Line 6, column 200, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
.... With these key items of evidence, the managers argument could be made considerably str...
^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'so', 'then', 'as to']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.267272727273 0.25644967241 104% => OK
Verbs: 0.167272727273 0.15541462614 108% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0854545454545 0.0836205057962 102% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0309090909091 0.0520304965353 59% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0218181818182 0.0272364105082 80% => OK
Prepositions: 0.12 0.125424944231 96% => OK
Participles: 0.0545454545455 0.0416121511921 131% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.60172414234 2.79052419416 93% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0145454545455 0.026700313972 54% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.130909090909 0.113004496875 116% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0145454545455 0.0255425247493 57% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00909090909091 0.0127820249294 71% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2967.0 2731.13054187 109% => OK
No of words: 494.0 446.07635468 111% => OK
Chars per words: 6.00607287449 6.12365571057 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71445763274 4.57801047555 103% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.352226720648 0.378187486979 93% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.273279352227 0.287650121315 95% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.182186234818 0.208842608468 87% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.107287449393 0.135150697306 79% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60172414234 2.79052419416 93% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 207.018472906 92% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.384615384615 0.469332199767 82% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 43.2899103978 52.1807786196 83% => OK
How many sentences: 22.0 20.039408867 110% => OK
Sentence length: 22.4545454545 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.6299996818 57.7814097925 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.863636364 141.986410481 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4545454545 23.2022227129 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.318181818182 0.724660767414 44% => More Discourse Markers wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 3.58251231527 167% => OK
Readability: 49.7824806772 51.9672348444 96% => OK
Elegance: 2.00826446281 1.8405768891 109% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.569170775636 0.441005458295 129% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.164318177027 0.135418324435 121% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0891169154545 0.0829849096947 107% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.648813310804 0.58762219726 110% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.113374482193 0.147661913831 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.272563715237 0.193483328276 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106841613695 0.0970749176394 110% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.521764824116 0.42659136922 122% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.131081222365 0.0774707102158 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.41261843315 0.312017818177 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.102510869182 0.0698173142475 147% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.33743842365 36% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 16.0 6.87684729064 233% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.82512315271 62% => OK
Positive topic words: 3.0 6.46551724138 46% => OK
Negative topic words: 15.0 5.36822660099 279% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 20.0 14.657635468 136% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.