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 the memorandum from the business manager, the television station seems to be struggling to keep up with the advertising money and is facing complaints regarding the late night news program, which has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. The memo states that the solution to this problem is to expand its news coverage of weather and local news on all its programs. However, this may not be attainable as the memo relies on several unwarranted assumptions that render the argument not persuasive.
First of all, the complaints received concerning the coverage of weather and local news are assumed to be negative towards the decision taken by the news channel for the late night news program. It is possible that these complaints are not against the decrease in the duration of local and weather reports. Perhaps these complaints are on issues related to the quality of the news presented by the TV channel hosts. An alternate possibility could be that the late night news is not able to be apprehended by the people who filed the complaints. If either of these scenarios turns out to be true, then the argument does not hold water.
Second of all, the memorandum assumes that expanding the coverage of local and weather news on all of its news programs in addition to the late night ones will attract a higher number of advertisers. This may not necessarily be true as the loss of advertisement revenue is purported by the memorandum solely due to the change in late night news reports and coverage. Thus, the expected increase in advertisement revenues may not be met with the strategy to adopt increased local and weather coverage on all the news outlets. In contrast, the news channel may lose its engagement and advertisers on the programs other than late night news. If this turns out to be true, then the argument seems to fall apart.
Finally, the argument assumes that the local businesses canceled their advertising on late night shows due to the change in the TV channel’s decision. However, it could be possible that most of these businesses are running low in profits and are not able to handle their budgets to invest in advertising. Also, it is possible that these firms are not in the need to advertise their products as their profits are in a stable condition. If this turns out to be true, then the argument’s contention that the loss in advertisement revenues is due to the change in news policy does not hold validity.
In conclusion, the memorandum from the business manager relies on several unwarranted assumptions that, if not substantiated, dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument. If the above mentioned assumptions are addressed with satisfactory explanations, then the decision to employ more coverage on local and weather reports may be further evaluated.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 479 350
No. of Characters: 2327 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.678 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.858 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.736 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.211 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.295 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.789 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.368 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, thus, in addition, in conclusion, in contrast, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2377.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 479.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9624217119 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67825486995 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8233899496 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.398747390397 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 741.6 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.5115480254 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.105263158 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2105263158 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.73684210526 5.70786347227 118% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.390233223042 0.218282227539 179% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.132938416365 0.0743258471296 179% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.128125748049 0.0701772020484 183% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.237438220041 0.128457276422 185% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.141772853914 0.0628817314937 225% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.