The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a listener-supported public radio station.
"For the past year, as part of an effort to broaden our supporter base, our Folk on the Air program has allocated less time to traditional American folk music and more time to Latino music and world music. In recent months, many long-term supporters of our station have written to complain about what they describe as the un-American bias of the program. In addition, the local newspaper has published a recent editorial critical to our shift in programming. Therefore, in order to forestall any further adverse publicity for the station and to avoid the loss of additional listener-supporters, we should discontinue our current emphasis on Latino and world music and restore the time devoted to traditional American folk music to its former level."
Respond by writing an essay in which you discuss the specific evidence you would need to judge the validity of the argument and explain how this evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
For media bodies like radio stations, taking consumer feedback into account when making decisions is essential for success. The memorandum states that many long-term supporters complained about an ‘un-American bias’ in the nature of the updated programming, and that a local newspaper also criticized it. The argument in favour of going back to the old schedule is based on the premise that through doing this, the bad publicity would cease, and that their core listener-base would stay. This argument is fallacious and has multiple lapses in its logic, with a conclusion wrongly drawn from the premises. There appears to be a representative flaw, with inadequate evidence provided in their reasoning. Any evidence that arises against the assumptions would falsify the argument's logic.
First, the argument claims that the decision was made to satisfy the 'many long-term supporters' who complained. 'Many' could mean a hundred, or a thousand; if the 'many' supporters do not form a significant fraction of the listener-supporters, then this does not warrant a regression in the radio programming. If, say, 2000 people called in to express their dissatisfaction with the changes made, one could argue that that is a lot of people, a significant amount. But if the average number of people who listen to the radio station regularly is 2 million, then the dissidents form 0.1% of the listeners; this is not something to reverse course over. Hence, the number of supporters whose criticism is being quelled by this reversal may not even be significant enough to warrant the business manager's decision.
Second, one may point to the local newspaper's criticism as a sign that the changes must be reverted. However, more evidence needs to be provided about the credibility of this newspaper. It may be a very small company, with writers known to write scathing opinion-pieces of companies that have taken any actions that resulted in criticism; the newspaper may be part of a bandwagon to define what they mean by 'American'. Being 'un-American' is very subjective, and having a local newspaper editorial write about how a company's actions are biased in this way is also not an indicator of 'Americanism'. Hence, the credibility and reputation of the local newspaper should be provided as evidence. If it was a well-respected newspaper, it could provide a valid reason to revert course.
Finally, the business manager seems to assume that criticism will decrease after the decision. But what if new listeners who joined in after the initial decision then proceed to express their dissatisfaction with this change? What if the potential new listener-base was bigger? If the radio station made the decision to diversify their music genres, they must have some statistics to show the number of new listeners, or the potential future numbers. If evidence is provided in favour of a huge potential for a more fast-growing listening base after the diversification, then the argument falls flat. The assumption that more listeners would be lost by the increase in genres, does not consider the number of listeners that could be gained. There is also the assumption that no other possibility exists to make their existing long-term supporters happy. It may be possible for them to schedule programming in such a way that their supporters don't greatly decrease. At hours when the long-term customers generally tune in with larger numbers, the programming could be left unchanged, while trying to have new genres at other time slots. If no evidence is provided that this kind of middle-ground solution is impossible, then the argument, yet again, would prove unwarranted.
Hence, the argument makes multiple jumps from its premises to conclusions, with incorrect reasoning and inadequate amounts of evidence reported. The arguments validity lies on some shaky assumptions, and these might be annihilated if any evidence, as discussed, is provided against them.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 13 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 633 350
No. of Characters: 3230 1500
No. of Different Words: 288 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.016 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.103 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.92 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 228 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 186 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 148 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 96 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.828 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.344 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.793 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.257 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.45 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 770, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...ainst the assumptions would falsify the arguments logic. First, the argument claims that...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 36, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'newspapers'' or 'newspaper's'?
Suggestion: newspapers'; newspaper's
...on. Second, one may point to the local newspapers criticism as a sign that the changes mu...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 942, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ing in such a way that their supporters dont greatly decrease. At hours when the lon...
^^^^
Line 5, column 149, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...quate amounts of evidence reported. The arguments validity lies on some shaky assumptions...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, second, so, then, well, while, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 28.8173652695 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3311.0 2260.96107784 146% => OK
No of words: 632.0 441.139720559 143% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23892405063 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.01394158123 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0130367376 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 303.0 204.123752495 148% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479430379747 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 1034.1 705.55239521 147% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.8583877288 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.172413793 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7931034483 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.10344827586 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.133135957716 0.218282227539 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.037406995356 0.0743258471296 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0319032169748 0.0701772020484 45% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0743168359497 0.128457276422 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0444012324261 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.11 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 159.0 98.500998004 161% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.