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 proposed to expand the late-night programs' coverage of weather and local news as suggested by recent complaints and the declining advertising revenue. However, many assumptions that underly the claim are unsubstantiated. Whether the compliant represents the opinions of the majority of audiences? What are other possible reason for a declining advertising orders? And finally, will the proposed approach engender any opportunity cost? I will elaborate on the three questions in greater details.
To begin with, the manager cited that most of the complaints the program receive shows worries about the station's coverage on weather and local news. There are two assumptions of the above reasoning: first, the complaints are calling for increasing the coverage of weather and local news, instead of further shrinking it. Second, that people who send out complaints can comprehensively represent the general viewers of the station. Whether the complaints can represent the mainstream opinions remains unknown. It is very likely that only 10 percent of viewers feel unsatisfied with the current coverage plan and they all send out complaints, while the other 90 percent of viewers are happy about the change but their voice remain unheard - assuming few people will send a message to the station just because they endorse a recent change. If this is true, then expanding the coverage of weather and local news will instead frustrate more viewers. Therefore, it is highly risky for the station to base its decision merely on this very limited information about viewer complaints.
The manager further argues that local business cancel their advertising order with an implicit implication that they are unsatisfied about recent changes of reducing local news coverage. This assumption, that local businesses are canceling their advertisement because of the downsize of local news. is highly questionable. It can be that the viewers watching late-night news program are downsizing as a whole due to people's preference towards a healthier lifestyle, therefore, the local businesses are switching their advertisement to a day time program with more viewers. It can also be that the local companies are forced to increase their wage spending due to local laws of increasing minimum wages, so most of them are cutting their marketing budget. If either of the previous scenarios is true, increasing coverage on local news will do nothing to regain those advertising revenue.
The last point to be considered is the opportunity cost if we downsizing the reports on national news in order to increase coverage on local and weather news. If the overall time allowed for this program limited, the expansion of weather and local news will come at the cost of a decrease in coverage of national news. If this is the case, further analysis comparing the lose and gain is definitely needed.
In conclusion, the claims by the manager is not convincing because it is based on many questionable assumptions, which, if proved unwarranted, will not achieve the effects it promised and may potentially cause further damage to the station.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 497 350
No. of Characters: 2588 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.722 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.207 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.779 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 172 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.591 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.664 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 106, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'stations'' or 'station's'?
Suggestion: stations'; station's
...program receive shows worries about the stations coverage on weather and local news. The...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 433, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Whether” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ent the general viewers of the station. Whether the complaints can represent the mainst...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 272, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...anceling their advertisement because of the downsize of local news. is highly questionable. ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 300, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Is
... because of the downsize of local news. is highly questionable. It can be that the...
^^
Line 13, column 368, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...is the case, further analysis comparing the lose and gain is definitely needed. In ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, while, in conclusion, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2655.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 497.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 5.34205231388 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84791134388 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470824949698 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 822.6 705.55239521 117% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.9356712246 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.434782609 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6086956522 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.73913043478 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.310967290209 0.218282227539 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0950214195371 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0974773585099 0.0701772020484 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.17622912892 0.128457276422 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0968361545808 0.0628817314937 154% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.49 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 120.0 98.500998004 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.