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 business manager of the memorandum concludes that the news program should devote more time in weather and local news as before due to many reasons. While such claim may seem plausible, the memorandum is rife with holes and assumptions and will be declared below. The author would have to eliminate such problems in order to warrant the conclusion of the memorandum.
First of all, the author assumes that because the complaints are mostly about the lack of time devoted to weather and local news, it should be restored as before. However, it is unclear how many complaints there were in total. There may have been a trifling amount of complaints in total and if this is the case, even though complaints regarding the lack of devotion in weather and local news are a majority, it would also be a trivial amount and can be neglected easily. For the author to use such evidence as an advocate of the conclusion of the memorandum, he/she would have to clarify the total number of complaints.
Moreover, the reason the advertising contract got canceled may not be due to the decrease in time devoted to weather and local news. Actually, there could be many reasons for it. The advertising company simply may not have been able to afford the advertising price and had cut off the expenses, or may have decided that late night is not germane for their advertisement. If the advertisement is about children's toys or baby products, then advertising it in the morning or in the afternoon would be a lot more plausible then late at night. For such reasons, this evidence does not seem to support the author's claim.
Last and foremost, the author assumes that the less attraction of the viewers is due to decreased devotion in weather and local news. However, there could be other reasons that affected the viewers' attraction. A competing television station may have rose above the surface and intrigued the viewers or simply, less viewers may prefer to watch the late-night news nowadays compared to before. For the author to make such assumption, the reason of the decrease in the viewers' attention needs to be further investigated and clarified.
To sum up, the memorandum might seem plausible and the evidences upholding the claim. However, through thorough investigation and examining the passage with various points of view, the memorandum does not stand a chance of justification. For the author to maintain the conclusion of the memorandum, he/she would have to eliminate the assumptions and implications discussed above.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 425 350
No. of Characters: 2056 1500
No. of Different Words: 180 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.54 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.838 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.666 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 142 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.368 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.797 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.335 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.335 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 519, Rule ID: LESS_MORE_THEN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'than'?
Suggestion: than
...afternoon would be a lot more plausible then late at night. For such reasons, this e...
^^^^
Line 4, column 190, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'viewers'' or 'viewer's'?
Suggestion: viewers'; viewer's
...ould be other reasons that affected the viewers attraction. A competing television stat...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 310, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun viewers is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ce and intrigued the viewers or simply, less viewers may prefer to watch the late-ni...
^^^^
Line 4, column 466, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'viewers'' or 'viewer's'?
Suggestion: viewers'; viewer's
...tion, the reason of the decrease in the viewers attention needs to be further investiga...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, while, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2103.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 423.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.97163120567 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53508145475 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74057782967 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.449172576832 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 657.9 705.55239521 93% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.0770964412 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.684210526 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2631578947 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.84210526316 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.238594118533 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.079281162252 0.0743258471296 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.106837347066 0.0701772020484 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142345923174 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0698667473804 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 11.84 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.