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 premise stated in the argument that 'the time devoted to weather and local news should be restored to former levels to attract more viewers and avoid losing further advertising revenue', seems to be valid prima facie. However, further detailed analysis needs to be conducted in order to arrive at the correct conclusion. Various forms of evidence would be required to come to a correct conclusion, some of which can be discussed below.
Firstly, it is stated that over the last one year, the late-night news program has devoted more time to national news and less time to weather and local news. It is imperative to understand why this change was brought about in the first place. There must have been certain reasons why the television station would have made this change, which the business manager might have thought would be profitable to the station. Doing this change might have resulted in higher viewer ratings or any other benefits. The evidence for undertaking this change should be first researched and analyzed to strengthen or weaken the argument.
Next, understanding which category of viewers actually watched this late-night news program would be very important to come to a conclusion. Here, the demographics of the viewers is extremely important. The television station should find out whether the majority of the viewers are more interested in watching the national news, which would give them a holistic understanding of what is happening around. Or they are more interested in watching the local news which would confine their understanding to a particular region. Also, it would be equally important for the television station to check if the complaints received are from viewers who are consistent customers of the channel or by sporadic customers. If the majority of the complaints received are from consistent customers, it would make more sense for the television station to bring a change in their late-night news program to cater to these regular customers.
Finally, it is also worth noting the point of revenue obtained from the advertising of local businesses. It is important to analyze the reasons why local businesses have canceled the advertising contracts with the television station. Is it actually because of the change in the late-night news program or because of some entirely different reason? If it is because of some other reason, then the television station could try and understand the reason behind the same by talking to these local businesses and there wouldn't be any particular need to restore the time devoted to its former level. If the contracts were canceled because of the change in the late-night news program, then the television can try to understand how the change in the late-night news program is actually affecting the local businesses.
Thus to conclude, even though the suggestion to restore the time devoted to local news and weather should be restored to its former level seems correct on the first look, it makes sense to investigate further about the truth behind the suggestion. Having valid evidence to encourage or refute the argument is extremely important before taking any final decision.
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 516 350
No. of Characters: 2608 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.766 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.054 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.652 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 160 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 100 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.693 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.128 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 13, column 422, Rule ID: TRY_AND[1]
Message: "Try and" is common in colloquial speech, but "'try to'" is recommended for writing.
Suggestion: try to
...ason, then the television station could try and understand the reason behind the same b...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 515, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
...ing to these local businesses and there wouldnt be any particular need to restore the t...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ly affecting the local businesses. Thus to conclude, even though the suggestion...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, look, so, then, thus, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2669.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18252427184 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71081452915 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.41359223301 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 838.8 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.9871145491 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.095238095 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5238095238 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47619047619 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.296576230342 0.218282227539 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0981164076539 0.0743258471296 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106361371049 0.0701772020484 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171619852616 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0746168495583 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => 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: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => 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
---------------------
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.