Two years ago, radio station WCQP in Rockville decided to increase the number of call-in advice programs that it broadcast; since that time, its share of the radio audience in the Rockville listening area has increased significantly. Given WCQP's recent success with call-in advice programming, and citing a nationwide survey indicating that many radio listeners are quite interested in such programs, the station manager of KICK in Medway recommends that KICK include more call-in advice programs in an attempt to gain a larger audience share in its listening area.
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.
The writer of the argument concludes that radio station KICK in Medway should include more call-in advice programs in order to attract a larger audience share in its area mainly because it was the same successful strategy used by WCQP Station in Rockville two years earlier; however, the conclusion cannot be accepted mainly because it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.
The first problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that the increased share of WCQP’s audience is basically due to the addition of call-in advice programs. However, it is highly likely that this increase happened as a result of the good quality of other types of broadcasted programs such as games and contests, attracting much more audiences. On top of that, it could be possible that the versatility of WCQP’s programs was significant enough which covered a wide range of audiences with different preferences such as music, interviews, motivational documentaries, to name just a few. Thus, the writer's presumption may not be true.
Another problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that most radio listeners are quite interested in such call-in advice programs according to a nationwide survey, but he does not mention the number of people who have participated in it. As you know, the larger the number of the people in the sample of a survey, the more reliable and valid the findings are. Maybe there were only fifty people in the sample which is insignificant compared to the number of the target population. Besides, the writer fails to consider the age of the people in the sample. Maybe there were neither adolescents nor young adults in the sample, and the conclusion was drawn only according to the ideas of those who were either in their fifties or older, belying the viewpoint of the society. Therefore, the finding of such a survey is neither authentic nor valid.
Another problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that since WCQP Station was successful two years earlier thanks to call-in advice programs, KINK Station in Medway should include such programs in order to attract more audiences. However, the argument fails to contemplate some subtle differences. Maybe the success of WCQP was mostly due to the novelty of such programs during that period, so it would lead to a humiliating failure for KINK as people are not interested in such programs anymore these days. In addition, it is not warranted that all people in Medway are fans of such call-in advice programs. Maybe the people in Medway have a distinct taste, and virtually are passionate about other kinds of programs such as environmental news or political interviews.
In the final analysis, the writer’s conclusion cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on some assumptions, each of which is questionable. The conclusion can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to are all removed.
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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: 18 15
No. of Words: 501 350
No. of Characters: 2443 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.731 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.876 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.622 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.833 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.075 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 619, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'writers'' or 'writer's'?
Suggestion: writers'; writer's
...entaries, to name just a few. Thus, the writers presumption may not be true. Another ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, first, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, thus, in addition, such as, you know, as a result, on top of that
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2515.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 501.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01996007984 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73107062784 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74714517025 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455089820359 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 787.5 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 89.5233089173 57.8364921388 155% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.722222222 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.8333333333 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.94444444444 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.227177661265 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0618688968885 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0769178421817 0.0701772020484 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.125374661307 0.128457276422 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0850097343422 0.0628817314937 135% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.66 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 26.0 12.3882235529 210% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.