Argument Type
The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.
"According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public's lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In this argument, the author concludes that in order to improve the attendance of the Super Screen movies, the Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising. To support his conclusion, the author cites that few people attended the movies than in any other year and the qualities of the movies are good enough, the main problem is the lack of the awareness of the viewers. At first glance, this argument appears to be somewhat reasonable, actually, further reflection tells me that it has a myriad of assumptions and holes.
First and foremost, the author fails to tell us the sample size of the report which may be far from sufficient and can hardly represent the real condition of the past year. moreover, the author fails to inform us the number of the base percentage of the positive reviews,. he just speaks that the percentage has increased . It is highly possible that the percentage of the positive reviews is a small percentage, even if it increased last year, the percentage of the positive may inferior to percentage of the negative reviews which will lead to theclaim ill-founded. Unless the author provides more evidence to bolster his claim he cannot get this point.
In addition, the author presumptuously assumes that the lack of the quality is the unique factor that contributes to the decline of the attendance of movies. There is possibility that it is the price or the economic condition that give rise to the decline of the attendance of the movies. It is still quiet possible that there are some other competitors in this area who also manage the same business. It is also considerably irrational for the author to maintain that the ideas of the movie reviewers represent the real thought of the reviews.
Moreover, the author also commits a fallacy called "hasty generalization". The author remarkably predicts that the attendance of the reviews will increase by sharing a greater budge through advertising. It is enormously absurd for him to make the point that advertisement will exactly exert positive effect on this case. Even if the advertisement can spur the increase, it never amount to bring about a obvious profit for this company as the cost of the advertising.
In conclusion, this argument actually has several flaws as discussed above. To make this argument more convincing, the author would have to take every possible factor into account and provide more information to evaluate this claim.
Time 30min
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-09-18 | sh_shashi1 | 57 | view |
| 2013-08-27 | Chukky | 64 | view |
| 2013-08-19 | yesyayen123 | 86 | view |
| 2013-07-20 | utkarsh3010 | 65 | view |
| 2013-06-17 | rats_21 | 70 | view |
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- The following is a letter to the editor of an environmental magazine."In 1975 a wildlife census found that there were seven species of amphibians in Xanadu National Park, with abundant numbers of each species. However, in 2002 only four species of amphibi 61
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Sentence: It is highly possible that the percentage of the positive reviews is a small percentage, even if it increased last year, the percentage of the positive may inferior to percentage of the negative reviews which will lead to theclaim ill-founded.
Error: theclaim Suggestion: the claim
Error: ill-founded Suggestion: ill founded
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 2044 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.89 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.664 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.741 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.362 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.601 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5