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 of a television station assumes that the coverage of weather and local news should be increased on all their programs in order to attract the audience to watch their television. Furthermore, this would attract local businesses to advertise again with their television. To support his recommendation, the manager states that the viewers complained about the decline in their station’s coverage of weather and local news. Furthermore, this resulted in canceling the advertising contracts by the local business who used to advertise during the late-night news program. However, the manager has made few assumptions that the reader should be looking further deep into them before coming into a conclusion to the argument.
Firstly, the business manager assumes that the viewers complained about the decrease in the amount of weather and local news included in their television station programs in general, and not exactly in the late-night news program. It could be possible that viewers’ complaints are not concerned with their coverage of weather and local news in the late-night news program, but in some other daily programs. Maybe the viewers do not even follow the late-night programs and they do not know about the changes that the television has made in their late-night news program. To discover which programs are the viewers’ complaints concerned about, the television manager should conduct a survey. The evidence acquired with the survey would help the manager to have a closer insight into the real situation. Finally, he will know if the viewers’ complaints are with regards to the whole television program or exclusively to the late-night news program. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the manager’s conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the author of this argument argues that the local businesses who used to advertise with his television during its late-night news program, have canceled their advertising contracts with the television. Similarly to the viewers, local businesses might not be informed about the changes made in the late-night program or this fact might not be important for them. In contrast, they might have as a reason for their cancellation a potential financial crisis in their companies and; thus, they cannot devote money for a television advertising anymore, but rather they have found a less expensive media, such as the Internet, where they now advertise. In addition, local businesses might have decided to invest the limited money they have, in growing their business, instead of in expensive advertising. If this is true, then the author’s argument does not hold water.
Lastly, the television manager indicates that including more weather and local news in their television’s news program would attract more viewers. It could be possible that there is a new television station which is more advanced and interesting and; therefore, currently more popular. In this case, the business manager’s television could be able to attract more viewers and local business who would advertise with them, by introducing new, fresh and interesting programs. This would make this television competitive to the new television station and even, possibly more popular.
In conclusion, with the lack of profound analysis, supporting logic and comprehensive reasoning, the argument stands weak. A detailed study of the current situation in the television station and basing the argument on facts and supporting documents would have filled the holes and justified the author’s hypothesis.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-09-06 | mhayat29 | 55 | view |
| 2019-09-04 | benson zhang | 55 | view |
| 2019-08-05 | sea0215 | 77 | view |
| 2019-06-26 | madiha3 | 89 | view |
| 2019-06-22 | Mrunal47286 | 67 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 23 15
No. of Words: 559 350
No. of Characters: 2966 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.862 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.306 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.723 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 222 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 195 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 132 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.304 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.782 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.146 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 212, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Similarly,
...ertising contracts with the television. Similarly to the viewers, local businesses might ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 602, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'medium'?
Suggestion: medium
...rather they have found a less expensive media, such as the Internet, where they now a...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, look, may, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, therefore, thus, in addition, in conclusion, in contrast, in general, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 11.1786427146 188% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3082.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 559.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 5.51341681574 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86242540663 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96904536274 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.406082289803 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 948.6 705.55239521 134% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.6718018599 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.0 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3043478261 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.30434782609 5.70786347227 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.326424590125 0.218282227539 150% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.121481702862 0.0743258471296 163% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0953658042398 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.190733829038 0.128457276422 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0982082849522 0.0628817314937 156% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.7 14.3799401198 116% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.97 12.5979740519 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.