The following appeared in a memorandum from the general manager of KNOW radio station.
"Several factors indicate that radio station KNOW should shift its programming from rock-and-roll music to a continuous news format. Consider, for example, that the number of people in our listening area over fifty years of age has increased dramatically, while our total number of listeners has declined. Also, music stores in our area report decreased sales of recorded music. Finally, continuous news stations in neighboring cities have been very successful. The switch from rock-and-roll music to 24-hour news will attract older listeners and secure KNOW radio's future."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument mentions that the future of KNOW radio station can be secured by shifting from rock and roll music to 24 hours news broadcast. It argues that the population that listens to the station has a maximum percentage of people above 50 years of age and also that the sale of recorded music has fallen. It tries to bolster the argument by also comparing the current location to a neighboring location where this strategy has been successful. This argument is based on many unwarranted assumptions which are elucidated below.
Firstly, it has been assumed that people above fifty years of age would be attracted more to news broadcasting rather than music. This has been specified by mentioning the increase in the number of people above fifty years old in the listening area. It cannot be assumed without conducting a survey of some sort to get information about the listening interests of the people in that area. If this assumption proves to be wrong, it would lead to the downfall of the radio station since there would be a smattering of listeners for 24 hour news broadcast.
Secondly, it has been mention in the argument that there has been a decrease in the sales of recorded music. This statement assumes that there is a decline in the number of people listening to music in that area. But it could also be true that listeners have found other modes of listening to music more economical than buying music from music stores. Before concluding the argument, it should also view data regarding the number of listeners it could retain of gain by moving to 24 hour news broadcast. Just the decline of music sales should not be a reasoning for a huge change for the radio station.
Lastly, it mentions that this strategy has been successful in neighboring cities. Before assuming that the response would be similar to that of neighboring cities, it should also take into account the population distribution of the neighboring cities and the taste of the listeners. It could be possible that there are drastic differences between the preferences of listeners in these cities. Hence, it cannot be assumed that continuous news broadcast would be a success since it was a success in a different location.
Therefore, the argument specified is based on many unwarranted assumptions which need to be dwelled into. Data should be collected regarding these assumptions and a final conclusion should be made after a good analysis of the collected data.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 416 350
No. of Characters: 2005 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.516 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.82 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.641 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.438 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.554 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2050.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 416.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92788461538 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51620172871 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69189557285 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 174.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.418269230769 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 636.3 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 14.0 4.96107784431 282% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 29.2273540908 57.8364921388 51% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 107.894736842 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8947368421 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.94736842105 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.162466592439 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0592248331369 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0836641525543 0.0701772020484 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0986755189901 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0704660287534 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.31 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.