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 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 canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
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 memorandum that has been issued by the business manager of a television station definitely seems to be in the station's good interests. But the manager has made some obvious errors of judgement, and they are detailed below.
From the given memorandum, there is no obvious link between cutting down the time spent on local and weather news, and the complaints that are received regarding the television program's coverage of the same. The manager should have looked into the complaints and ascertained whether the problem is to do with the lessening of time devoted to those segments, or the way in which news is covered in those segments.
Also, the cutting-short of time spent on the local and weather news segments doesn't seem to logically explain why local businesses have cancelled their advertisements during the late night news program. The manager should have studied whether these businesses stopped advertising during the late night news program, and shifted their advertisent slots to prime-time, as they have a better chance of making a pitch to a larger number of customers. If that isn't the case, the manager should have analysed whether the local businesses were not agreeable to the television station's advertisement rules and policies. If that was the case, meeting up with the local business patrons and talking to them would help bring back advertising contracts, and not increasing local and weather news' coverage.
Usually, the people watching a news program during prime time outnumbers those watching a late-night news program. Even to people actually watching the program, a short update on local and weather news is preferred to a lengthy coverage of the same. A thorough survey of the local residents who watch the news programs being aired by this television station would actually help to design the program content. Failing this, such ad hoc decisions as is put forward in this memorandum, may only serve in damaging the reputation of the TV station and burning a hole in its revenues.
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Sentence: If that isn't the case, the manager should have analysed whether the local businesses were not agreeable to the television station's advertisement rules and policies.
Error: analysed Suggestion: analyzed
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 333 350
No. of Characters: 1659 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.272 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.65 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.001 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.408 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.637 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.155 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5