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 time 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 just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.”
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The presented memorandum claims that an increased attention given to national news has caused a decline in viewers and revenues for the television station. The business manager thinks that restoring the past amount of time dedicated to weather and local news will be able to fix the present condition. However, the memorandum fails to address some needed evidence in order to support the reached conclusion.
Firstly, it is not stated which type of television station this is. Is it a local or a national network? Although not specifically evidence, this would be a first piece of information which would allow to carry out a more accurate evaluation of the situation. In fact, many of the pointed out problems could be linked to the local vocation of the TV station, but we are not able to state this because information is missing.
Speaking about evidence, there is a complete lack of an account of the viewers' opinions. In fact, no survey or data analysis seems to have been conducted, hampering the possibility to prove the memorandum warranted. The only point in this sense is the one addressing "complaints", but these complaints are not detailed or further specified. How many are they with respect to the total number of viewers? This is a relevant question, because if the complaints come from the vast majority of the audience, the memorandum could be proved as right in its conclusion, while if the complaints are isolated or representing just few spectators, there would be no point in changing the TV programs. Additionally, complaints are not described in detail: are they asking to completely change the programs or are they just asking to include some local and weather related news? This could help evaluate to which extent a complete upheaval in the late-night time slot is necessary and to which extent few and precise changes could be made in order to please the complaining viewers.
Furthermore, there is an analogous lack of data about the sudden decline in advertising contracts signed by local businesses. Do they have declared that they are no more renewing their contracts due to a scarce attention to local news? Knowing this would be vital to avoid a misinterpretation of given information. In fact, there could be many other factors affecting a decrease in advertisement-based revenues. For instance, local businesses could be struggling with taxes and cannot afford to pay for TV adverts or TV contracts could have lost their appeal if compared to the cheaper and more capillary opportunities offered by social media in terms of advertising. On the other hand, if there would be consistent evidence of an abandonment of TV advertising caused by a misplacement of programs, then the business manager's conclusion would be supported.
To sum up, the business manager's memorandum offers some potential good points in order to restore a flourishing TV business, but it lacks evidence to be defined as substantiated. A more thorough analysis of the audience, its habits and the local business condition should be provided in order to decide whether the presented conclusion could be advantageous or not.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2566 1500
No. of Different Words: 235 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.983 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.912 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 153 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.409 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.962 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.49 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.049 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 203, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'carrying'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'allow' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: carrying
... piece of information which would allow to carry out a more accurate evaluation of the s...
^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...er to please the complaining viewers. Furthermore, there is an analogous lack ...
^^^^^
Line 13, column 818, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...lacement of programs, then the business managers conclusion would be supported. To...
^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 25, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...upported. To sum up, the business managers memorandum offers some potential good p...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, so, then, while, for instance, in fact, speaking about, to sum up, with respect to, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2645.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1359223301 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.09019472228 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.479611650485 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 830.7 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.1639632948 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.227272727 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4090909091 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.72727272727 5.70786347227 118% => OK
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 : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.201274855931 0.218282227539 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0617390252821 0.0743258471296 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.063406657989 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127234743995 0.128457276422 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0862941919809 0.0628817314937 137% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => 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.