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 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 business manager claims that the insufficient local and weather news is causing the viewer decrease as well as the cancellation of the advertisement contracts. However, there are several aspects should be further examined before making this conclusion.
First, it is unclear that whether the complaints cause any viewer decrease. It is only mentioned that most of the complaints are about the insufficient portion of the local and weather news. However, complaints does not necessary cause viewer drop. Also, it is not provided whether the amounts of complaints are growing or not. It might be a long-lasting complaints before more national news are being broadcasted. Furthermore, the demographic of the compaints is missing, so it is also unknown whether the complaints come from the majority of the viewers or it only represents minority's opinions.
Second, though the complaints and the withdraw of the advertisment contracts happened at the same period, it doen't indicates any causation. There might be other reasons causing the cancellation of the contracts, such as increasing contract fees, or changing preference of the advertising companies. Therefore, it is premature to draw causation if no futher understanding of the reasons causing the cancellation is being revealed.
Last, the manager draws conclusion that the way to attract more viewers is to increase the portion of the local and weather news. However, this conclusion is only based on the complaints received and with the problem mentioned in the second paragraph, it is obvious that the complaint doesn't represent the comprehensive condition, instead it only shows the feedback of a certain group. Therefore, it is problematic to predict viewers' preference only based on such an unknownl portion of the feedbacks. On the contrary, more research to discover the viewers needs is critical to judge whether the portion of national and local news should be changed. Only by knowing this info and with the finding of contract cancellation together, can we provide the suitable suggestion that whether the portion change of the news is required.
In conclusion, the representation of the complaints, the causation between compaints and the cancellation of the advertisement contracts, and the assupmtion of the viewers' preferences as well as the reasons behind the advertisement contract cancellation are being questioned before a suitable conclusion can be hold.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 380 350
No. of Characters: 2015 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.415 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.303 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.046 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 66 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.554 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.376 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.595 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 356, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'complaint'?
Suggestion: complaint
...wing or not. It might be a long-lasting complaints before more national news are being bro...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 35, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
.... Second, though the complaints and the withdraw of the advertisment contracts happened ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 286, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...graph, it is obvious that the complaint doesnt represent the comprehensive condition, ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, however, if, second, so, therefore, well, in conclusion, such as, as well as, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2068.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 378.0 441.139720559 86% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.4708994709 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40933352052 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.11362062701 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.44708994709 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 612.9 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.1106310247 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.647058824 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2352941176 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0 5.70786347227 123% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.17488528591 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0706553228919 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.069828754246 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100708141569 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0690613057366 0.0628817314937 110% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.74 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.