'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 would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The recommendation of increasing viewership and decreasing loss of advertising revenue by devoting more time to weather and local news, seems logical at first glance. However, it cannot be accepted at face value for a number of reasons. The business manager fails to provide the statistics regarding how much more time was devoted to national news and how much time was taken away from weather and local news. Moreover, data is needed regarding the number of complaints received regarding the issue and whether those complaints were related to the time devotion of the local and weather news sections. Likewise, data regarding change in viewership is required to determine whether there has been a fall or not. Furthermore, attributing loss of advertising revenue with lower weather and local news is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation. Thus, further evidence is needed before making a decision.
Firstly, the business manager mentions increased time devoted to national news, which is perceived to be taken away from local and weather news. However, data regarding the exact time changes is needed, to make a valid argument for the case. It could be that more national news is being shown because there are less advertising campaigns to air. In this scenario, the overall time for local and weather news might not have changed at all. Thereby, eliminating the need to change the time devoted to local and weather news.
Secondly, the memorandum mentions complaints regarding local and weather news. However, it fails to mention what those complaints were about. The viewers might not have a problem with the time devotion of the weather and local news, rather their content might be inadequate or inaccurate. Therefore, further information is needed to analyze whether the viewers actually have a problem with the time or not. Moreover, 'most' is a vague word. It requires statistical backing to ensure that indeed a higher number of complaints were regarding the issue at hand, rather than other issues. Besides, it is important to determine whether the complaints have actually led to a fall in viewership of the channel or not. If there has been no decrease even after such complaints, then the recommendation fails to serve its purpose. Furthermore, information about the nature of the other complaints could also provide insight into other prevalent issues of the station, which might be adversely affecting the inflow of advertising revenue.
Thirdly, considering loss of advertising revenue a result of lower air times for local and weather news could be a flawed assumption. They could be happening simultaneously, stimulated by entirely different factors, rather than one being caused by another. Further investigation must be done, e.g. by interviewing the businesses regarding the reasons behind cancelling contracts. It is wrong to assume that it is because of lower local and weather news air times.
Conclusively, before making any decision, it is imperative to look into the statistical evidence of changes in air time over the past year. Moreover, the nature and number of the complaints need to analyzed. Furthermore, a decrease in viewership needs to be determined before assuming that it has occurred. Likewise, reasons behind loss of advertising revenue must be investigated thoroughly, prior to associating them with the issue at hand. Once the aforementioned evidence is provided, a well-informed decision can be made.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 30 15
No. of Words: 551 350
No. of Characters: 2842 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.845 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.158 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.813 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 211 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 177 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 114 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.367 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.172 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.767 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.461 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.071 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 451, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...eover, most is a vague word. It requires statistical backing to ensure that indee...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, besides, but, e.g., first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, likewise, look, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 35.0 19.6327345309 178% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2921.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 551.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30127041742 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84493438435 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8941285936 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.422867513612 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 926.1 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.1320182509 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 97.3666666667 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3666666667 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.0 5.70786347227 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.321144209776 0.218282227539 147% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0971911003516 0.0743258471296 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.114455108337 0.0701772020484 163% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206238187871 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.130106483901 0.0628817314937 207% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.46 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.