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.
The argument states the business manager is claiming that there have been some complaints from the viewer regarding the weather, therefore to prevent this problem, they should restore the time to the former duration. While a cursory reading of this statement may see this quite reasonable, there exist several flaws in the manager's argument. The conclusion of this argument depends on some arguments, which are debatable, making the conclusion invalid.
First of all, the manager is implicating that, by increasing the time duration, the television station can hope to see complains plummeted. But, without any further inspection of the complain, the manager is clearly throwing peebles in the dark pond. In his statement, he did not mention the exact reason of complains, may be it is immaterial to the time duration of the weather forecast and local news, rather than the diminished quality of the news. The television might broadcast trivial local news and was briefing the weather of current day - not prognosticating the weather of upcoming day - which will definitely annoy the viewers. Instead, if the tv station focuses on improving on their news quality rather than augment the duration of the shows, that will satiate the viewers. Indeed, the argument would be strengthened if it clearly state the main reason behind the complains rather than just try for a risky solution.
Secondly, the argument states that, by increasing the time duration, they will not lose advertising revenues further. This is again a vague expression which does not provide any logical solution for resurgence of advertising revenues. However, the local business might forfeit their extension of contract with the tv station because their purpose for the advertisement - gaining local peoples' attraction towards their business - is successful, thereby no need of renewing the contract. Moreover, a few number of people watch the late night tv shows when these advertisements are broadcasted, which will not reap any profit for the respective promotion of the products, therefore the business companys may find another tv programs which will promote their products in the daytime. So, the tv station should take other measures by no means to increase their revenues.
Upon considering the several flaws, it can be concluded the argument is not impeccable at all. The manager must thoroughly analyze the problems before coming into any discreet decisions instead of merely augmenting the time duration. Nevertheless, the argument indubitable, if the analysis of the complaints were more accurately analysed, subsequently reaching at thoughtful decision, not by precipitating.
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 17 15
No. of Words: 414 350
No. of Characters: 2188 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.511 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.285 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.755 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.751 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.706 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 324, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...nable, there exist several flaws in the managers argument. The conclusion of this argume...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 180, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
... But, without any further inspection of the complain, the manager is clearly throwing peeble...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 320, Rule ID: MAY_BE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'maybe' (=perhaps)?
Suggestion: maybe
... mention the exact reason of complains, may be it is immaterial to the time duration o...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 845, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'states'?
Suggestion: states
...ent would be strengthened if it clearly state the main reason behind the complains ra...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 499, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun number seems to be countable; consider using: 'few numbers'.
Suggestion: few numbers
...d of renewing the contract. Moreover, a few number of people watch the late night tv shows...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, while, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 11.1786427146 18% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2256.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 414.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.44927536232 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51076378781 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86940555592 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.550724637681 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 681.3 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.5396301665 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.705882353 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3529411765 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.23529411765 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.229311527353 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0696447400967 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0575026491844 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125402776102 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0542865427849 0.0628817314937 86% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.63 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.4 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.