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.
In order to stop losing viewers and profits, the business manager of a television station advises to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former levels. To buttress his conclusion, the manager says that most complaints are about the station's coverage of weather and local news. However, are these complaints about the quality or the quantity of such coverage? Would people be happy if the station simply restored its former late-night news program, or do they want something completely different? Another argument used by the manager is that local businesses have just canceled their advertising contracts with the station. Is there correlation or causation? Further evidence is needed to evaluate the manager's claims.
Even though limited, some time is still allocated to the coverage of weather and local news. If the author provided evidence that viewers found this time not long enough, the conclusion would be perfectly supported. However, quantity does not imply quality. If the viewers are discontent with the quality of the station's presentations, extending the coverage of weather and local news is not the right strategy.
Furthermore, the manager argues that by restoring the coverage to its former level will solve the problem. Nevertheless, suppose that the viewers are only interested by local news and weather. Then, what they really want is not the former level of coverage, but an even more sophisticated and complete coverage of their favourite meteorological and local topics.
Did the businesses cancel their contracts because the station lost viewers or were these two events a coincidence? Maybe the businesses are nearly bankrupt and have to cancel their contracts for some other extrinsic reason. Or there may be a third element in the story. Suppose, the country is in a recession. People feel apathy for television and news in general. Besides, they have less money for consumption. In this gloomy scenarion, people watch less TV and consume less. What happens? The station loses viewers, the businesses lose consumers. The businesses have no more money to pay for their advertisments and cancel their contracts. In order to establish his claim, the manager needs to provide some evidence that there is no recession in the country, and that local businesses have canceled advertising contracts with their station in order to sign similar contracts with the station's competitor who provides people with a wider coverage of weather and local news.
Without further evidence, the business manager's recommendations should not be adopted. Further evidence on the nature of the complaints and the state of the local economy is needed.
- 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 93
- Politicians should pursue common ground and reasonable consensus rather than elusive ideals. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In d 100
- The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing."Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of 85
- The council of Maple County, concerned about the county's becoming overdeveloped, is debating a proposed measure that would prevent the development of existing farmland in the county. But the council is also concerned that such a restriction, by limiting 82
- The increasingly rapid pace of life today causes more problems than it solves.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and suppor 90
Sentence: The businesses have no more money to pay for their advertisments and cancel their contracts.
Error: advertisments Suggestion: advertisements
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2205 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.176 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.656 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 168 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.097 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.276 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.456 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5