The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.
"According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The advertising director of the Super Screen Movie recommends that they should allocate a greater share of its budget in advertising. In support of this conjecture, a report is stated about the number of people attending movies produced by them, and positive reviews regarding their movies. However, the argument depends on three unwarranted assumptions which, if not substantiated, significantly reduce its persuasiveness.
Firstly, is the report credible? The report is from the marketing department about the past year that less people attended movies produced by them (Super-Screen). There are no empirical data or statistics about the report. The report said less people, which can have divergent meaning. There may have been 2000 people watching their movies two years ago, but in the past year there was 1999 people watched their movies. Now a decrease of one people do not have significant affect on the overall profit. Was the report based on a single country ,or a single state ,or the whole world? There is no specifications about these too. If the report was based on a single state, it is plausible that that single state has substantial reduction of people watching Super-Screen movies, whereas viewers from the other states increased sufficiently to offset or even increase the number of viewers. If any of these are true, the argument loses its credibility.
Secondly, are the positive reviews about the movies statistically strong enough ? The author mentioned that percentage of positive reviews about their produced movies increased. The percentage has ambigous meaning, as there are even possibilites that the number of positive reviews in reality has decreased. There may have been 100 reviews last year where 60 percent were positive reviews, which gives us 60 people. In this year, there were only 10 reviews overall, and 9 of them were positive. Now, 60 positive reviews are far greater than 9 positive reviews. That is why, percentage should not be taken as granted. The percentage statement needs more evidence to back it up. Then, even if the number of reviews has increased, there might lie another reason. Maybe the reviewers are not good enough, maybe the reviewers that people trust more gave a negative review. If any of these true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, why is it assumed that the quality of the movies is great? This might be a primary reason for people not going to Super-Screen movies as their quality has plummeted in the last year. It is not wise to assume that there is not fault in the quality of their movies. Another assumption is the survey is about last year. In this year, there may have increase in viewers of their movies regardless of any changes. Maybe there was a economical crisis or a pandemic, because of that the number of people attending their movies decreased.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, has several unwarranted assumptions. These assumptions and questions have to answered by the author and provide sufficent additional evidences to back them up, then it will be feasible to fully evaluate the merit of the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 32 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2538 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.928 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.631 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 190 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.094 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.234 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.438 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.274 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.274 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 250, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e attending movies produced by them, and positive reviews regarding their movies....
^^
Line 2, column 103, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ing department about the past year that less people attended movies produced by them...
^^^^
Line 2, column 238, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...stics about the report. The report said less people, which can have divergent meanin...
^^^^
Line 2, column 472, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'effect'?
Suggestion: effect
...e of one people do not have significant affect on the overall profit. Was the report base...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 542, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...Was the report based on a single country ,or a single state ,or the whole world? T...
^^
Line 2, column 561, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...d on a single country ,or a single state ,or the whole world? There is no specific...
^^
Line 2, column 583, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'There are no specifications'?
Suggestion: There are no specifications
...,or a single state ,or the whole world? There is no specifications about these too. If the report was base...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 435, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ardless of any changes. Maybe there was a economical crisis or a pandemic, becaus...
^
Line 4, column 437, Rule ID: ECONOMICAL_ECONOMIC[1]
Message: Did you mean 'economic' (=connected with economy)?
Suggestion: economic
...dless of any changes. Maybe there was a economical crisis or a pandemic, because of that t...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, whereas, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2611.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06990291262 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72162790035 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.454368932039 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 813.6 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 32.0 19.7664670659 162% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.8400326543 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 81.59375 119.503703932 68% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.09375 23.324526521 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.40625 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 9.0 5.25449101796 171% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.249794131706 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.063634372021 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0981350803025 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.135355623995 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0947764203875 0.0628817314937 151% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.5 14.3799401198 73% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.83 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.05 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.