Write a response to the following argument that analyzes its stated or implied assumptions, reveals how the argument’s position depends on the assumptions, and explains the effect of any flawed assumptions on the argument’s validity.
“The following appeared in an in-house memo sent from a marketing director to the editorial department of a television news station.
“ Our research shows that when the news director comes on screen at the end of the newscast to present his perspective on an issue, many viewers switch stations or turn off the television entirely. Besides lowing viewers, which lowers our ability to charge top dollar for advertising spots, we are wasting extra time that we could be filling with more ads. In addition, people tell us that they feel editorials are best read in the newspaper, not heard on television. Therefore, we recommend stopping all editorials at the ends of newscasts.” “
The decision proposed by the marketing director, though initially presented as a sound argument, makes several assumptions that the argument hinges on. The following paragraphs will point out the flaws in these assumptions and demonstrate why the argument made by this director is incomplete.
In his opening statement, the marketing director implies that viewers are switching stations because the newscast is over and that they are uninterested in listening to editorials. However, if this assumption were to be shown as false, the director’s argument would be incorrect. However, there are a myriad of possibilities as to why viewers not choosing to continue watching. There is a possibility that the news director has no charisma and is boring to watch or even that majority of the viewers disagree with the news director’s perspective on events and thus choose not to subjugate themselves to his views. From only these few examples, we can see that the assumption lacks support and in doing so, weakens the argument made by the director. One only need take a cursory glance at this assumption to see that it is flawed and is not sufficiently supported to warrant a recommendation to stop all editorials at the end of newscasts.
Additionally, the text does not specify how many people were surveyed or what type of survey was done, if the survey was a very small sample size or a self-selection survey, any level of truly significant data that can be gleaned from the survey will be minimal at best and almost certainly not reflect the view of the general viewership. For example, if 10 viewers that feel very strongly against the broadcast choose to fill out the form, but 50 viewers who are indifferent or satisfied with the status quo see no reason to fill out the survey, results will appear to show that people do not want the editorial broadcasts when in fact majority are quite satisfied. We can thus see how assuming that the feedback given by some viewers necessarily represents the views of all is incorrect and can lead to the erroneous conclusion that all editorials following newscasts must end.
When mentioning that the editorial time could easily be filled with ad time, the marketing director is making the assumption that viewers would rather watch the advertisements over the editorial. It is safe to say, that many if not all viewers, have never enjoyed very lengthy ad time and history proves this. In the past, ads used to be minutes long but in the present era of youtube, the average ad time is now only 7 seconds and there is often an option to skip the ad after 3 seconds. From personal experience, I can say that I never miss a chance to skip ads. Therefore, it is clear to see that to replace the editorial space with ads will increase or even maintain viewership. The outlined reasons above demonstrate how it cannot be assumed that viewers will watch additional ads if the editorials are removed. As a result, the argument made to remove all editorials that follow news broadcasts is further weakened.
Though the marketing director attempts to make a case for removal of editorials at the end of broadcasts his reasoning is not complete as was demonstrated when explaining why viewers might stop viewing the show prematurely. The research presented is lacking necessary information to ensure that the data taken is solid and thus cannot be used to make such a critical decision. This marketing director will need to provide more detail before this decision is considered a sound choice.
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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: 21 15
No. of Words: 597 350
No. of Characters: 2879 1500
No. of Different Words: 279 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.943 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.822 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.74 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 202 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 164 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 118 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.504 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.514 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 307, Rule ID: THERE_RE_MANY[3]
Message: Possible agreement error. Did you mean 'myriads'?
Suggestion: myriads
...ould be incorrect. However, there are a myriad of possibilities as to why viewers not ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, second, so, therefore, thus, as to, for example, in fact, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 24.0 13.6137724551 176% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2959.0 2260.96107784 131% => OK
No of words: 597.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95644891122 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94303383012 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85210398912 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 287.0 204.123752495 141% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.480737018425 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 928.8 705.55239521 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 69.2782355643 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.904761905 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.4285714286 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.14285714286 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
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: 0.121231971314 0.218282227539 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0434393452024 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0573527170036 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0830102839111 0.128457276422 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.073690820083 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.06 48.3550499002 89% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => 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.