'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 would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The business manager of this television station believes that reallocating more time to weather and local news will cull more viewers during the late-night news program and retain the stations current advertisement revenue. However, the manager fails to explore the reasons why the station has received so many complaints in the past year and why ad agencies are pulling their advertisements. With more support, this manager can better explain his or her decision to focus more on local news and weather.
To begin, the manager notes that the station has devoted more time to national news in the past year. And he or she mentions that only weather and local news received most of the complaints from viewers. What isn't clear in this memo is whether viewers want more screen time for local news and weather, or if they had complaints with the coverage itself. A proper way to address this portion of the memo is if the manager could support this claim with quotes from letters or paraphrased statements stating that viewers want more weather and local news. If viewers had complaints about the content of the coverage, such as poor reporting or inaccuracies, then allocating more time for these areas would produce the opposite effect and cause more viewers to stop watching this program. A better solution, in this instance, would be to have better editors and fact-checkers in place for local pieces.
In addition to the vague statements regarding viewers, the manager doesn't provide enough information as to why advertisers are pulling ads from this program. Even if there was a special focus on national news each night, this wouldn't hurt local businesses or their advertising. It's possible that the local news and weather coverage may not be showcasing the locality well. Perhaps the businesses are often being attacked in the reporting, thus causing the local businesses to pull their ads from this station. It would be in the managers best interest to disclose why these businesses no longer want to advertise with the station to properly understand if there's something inherently wrong with the program or if it's the fact that little attention is paid to the community.
If the issue is not the quality of reporting local news and weather and is solely related to viewership, then the manager should review ratings and viewership analytics. This kind of information will provide insight into the demographics of viewers and why viewership may fluctuate based on the timing of each news segment. If viewership is low during national news and higher during local news and weather, then it would be in the best interest of the station to focus on local news and weather.
In conclusion, the business manager of this station should have done more investigation into the matter before declaring the need to shift focus from national news to local news and weather. Evidence from the content of news segments, the advertisers' rationale, and viewership would have provided stronger arguments to support the manager's decision.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 503 350
No. of Characters: 2492 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.736 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.954 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.554 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.474 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.33 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.684 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.386 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.121 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 210, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...st of the complaints from viewers. What isnt clear in this memo is whether viewers w...
^^^^
Line 5, column 68, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...atements regarding viewers, the manager doesnt provide enough information as to why ad...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 227, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
...focus on national news each night, this wouldnt hurt local businesses or their advertis...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 530, Rule ID: THE_SUPERLATIVE[4]
Message: A determiner is probably missing here: 'managers the best'.
Suggestion: managers the best
...s from this station. It would be in the managers best interest to disclose why these business...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 657, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...h the station to properly understand if theres something inherently wrong with the pro...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 714, Rule ID: IT_IS[17]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: it's; it is
...inherently wrong with the program or if its the fact that little attention is paid ...
^^^
Line 9, column 240, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'advertisers'' or 'advertiser's'?
Suggestion: advertisers'; advertiser's
... from the content of news segments, the advertisers rationale, and viewership would have pr...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
however, if, may, regarding, so, then, thus, well, as to, in addition, in conclusion, kind of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 27.0 11.1786427146 242% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2535.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 500.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72870804502 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62523979857 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 218.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.436 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 772.2 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.0753327507 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.421052632 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.3157894737 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.36842105263 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.437255954221 0.218282227539 200% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.168531836329 0.0743258471296 227% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.103381256179 0.0701772020484 147% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.283897497524 0.128457276422 221% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0428247003795 0.0628817314937 68% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 53.55 48.3550499002 111% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.