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.
At first glance, the argument from the manager of the television station seems plausible. They decided to focus on national news at the expense of weather and local news. There seems to be some complaints about this from the viewers, advertisements from local businesses seem to have declined and overall it has lead to negative results. The assumption is that if he restores the news program to former levels, then it will attract more viewers and will avoid losing more ad revenues. Once the issue is analyzed, the argument raises some questions and the lack of evidence proves the assumptions to be flawed.
To begin, the tv station made a change to the news program. As a result "viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news". However, no context is provided to fully understand what the concern from the viewer really is. Sure, they could be concerned with the lack of time allotted to the weather and local news, but what if the change to the program occurred during the hurricane season? In this case, there is an underlying cause driving the viewer's concern. Frankly if this were the case, then it would display incompetence and lack of awareness from the people who changed the program. However, I'm just asking a question and until the manager provides more data behind this argument, we won't be able to have a full understanding of the viewer's concern.
Another point the manager makes is that the advertisements from local businesses has declined since the change to the program was made. Again, no context is provided around this point. A recession may cause the same effect, but this would not be related to the change in the program. One more scenario would be that more people get their news from the internet now, so what if they decided to focus on advertising on social media? Just like the previous scenario, this would cause the same result, a decline in business revenue.
As a result of the manager's dilemma, he reasons that if he restores the program to how it was formattedin the past, then he would stop losing advertisements and will attract more viewers. The fundamental question here is what is the definition of 'more'? What are the metrics he's utilizing to establish an increase in viewership? Is one more viewer than those he had yesterday a success in this effort? Due to the vagueness of that metric, it's hard to know if he will be ultimately successful in his endeavor.
The manager's argument that making changes to the news program has led to less viewership and advertisement revenue raises profound questions. What is the context behind this change? Is there anything occurring locally of great importance to the viewer's of the channel? Is it more effective for advertisements to reach consumers through alternate methods? And, what is the metric the manager will use to know if his new decision was successful? Unfortunately, no evidence or background information is provided by the manager, and as it stands his arguments proves to be flawed and hollow.
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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: 28 15
No. of Words: 517 350
No. of Characters: 2462 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.768 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.762 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.619 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 48 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.464 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.884 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.429 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.28 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.465 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 636, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: I'm
...eople who changed the program. However, Im just asking a question and until the ma...
^^
Line 7, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...usiness revenue. As a result of the managers dilemma, he reasons that if he restores...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 275, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: he's
...efinition of more? What are the metrics hes utilizing to establish an increase in v...
^^^
Line 9, column 5, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'managers'' or 'manager's'?
Suggestion: managers'; manager's
...ely successful in his endeavor. The managers argument that making changes to the new...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, frankly, however, if, may, really, so, then, as for, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2529.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 4.91067961165 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71441170738 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.469902912621 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 788.4 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => 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: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 38.983251244 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.3214285714 119.503703932 76% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3928571429 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.71428571429 5.70786347227 48% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.24644393809 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0701037918954 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0697258662631 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141753906971 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0678651342021 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.9 14.3799401198 76% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.24 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.