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 would be needed in order to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the argument presented, the business manager of a television station is making a case for restoring the broadcast time for weather and local news to previous level before it was eclipsed by national news. This should be done in order to ensure increased viewership and avoid losing advertising revenue. This argument is based on certain tall assumptions. Additional information is required to evaluate the argument and test its veracity.
Firstly, the argument states that a majority of the complaints received in the year gone by are related to the stations's coverage of weather and local news. However, the memo does not elucidate on the nature of the complaints. Further evidence is required on whether the viewers were specifically complaining about the reduced telecast time of the weather and local news. It can be the case that the complaints were not really about the increase in time but rather other issues like the quality of news being presented, moving the weather and local news to a different time slot, etc. Until and unless a nature of the complaints is understood we cannot jump to the conclusion that viewers are demanding an increase in the telecast time of weather and local news.
This brings us the relationship between increased viewership and increased time devoted to local and weather news. A causal relationship has been established of the latter on the former in the argument without any evidence. Even if the complaints being received are demanding more time for weather and local news, there is no proof whether this will lead to an increase in viewership. Further information regarding the aggregate viewer base of the TV station, and viewership base for various news segments is required to make any conclusion. It can be the case that increasing the time allotted to local and weather news will bring in new viewers but by cutting back on national news, or some other segment, there will be bigger loss of viewership resulting in a net decrease in viewership. Hence, information regarding the viewership trends needs to be presented to substantiate the argument being presented by the business manager.
Lastly, evidence is required to prove that the local businesses that have canceled their advertisement contract with the TV station is because of the reduction in telecast time of local and weather news. It is possible that the local advertisers got a better deal by other local TV stations, or that they cutting back on advertising through television media and investing in other advertising media. The bottomline is that strong evidence is required to prove that increasing the time for local and weather news would necessarily help in not losing further advertising revenues. Such evidence would surely strengthen the otherwise wobbly argument.
In conclusion, the business managers's memo comes across as an entirely unsubstantiated piece which carries no evidence whatsoever on the causal relationship between viewership and local and weather news segment. Consequently, the suggestions made are also not rooted in logic. They have to be bolstered by presenting further evidence and additional information as mentioned in the preceding paragraphs and only then can the argument be evaluated wholly.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
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.
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 522 350
No. of Characters: 2685 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.78 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.144 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.831 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 169 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.878 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 228, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...cidate on the nature of the complaints. Further evidence is required on whether the vie...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 460, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...aggregate viewer base of the TV station, and viewership base for various news seg...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, firstly, hence, however, if, lastly, really, regarding, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2738.0 2260.96107784 121% => OK
No of words: 522.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24521072797 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77988695657 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87799658008 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.425287356322 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 863.1 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.76035278 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.454545455 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7272727273 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.04545454545 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.348493752392 0.218282227539 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.118165596594 0.0743258471296 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.109844402449 0.0701772020484 157% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.214615896697 0.128457276422 167% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.081606508212 0.0628817314937 130% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.47 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => 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?
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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.