Argument 8 范例

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Arg 8 build new dorm

The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.

To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham.

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.



C1: To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories.

G1: Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate.

G2: Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years.

C2: Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing.

C3: Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham.


A1 (G1, C2): The projection over the next 50 years is useful for making the decision.

A2 (G2, C2): The data about the average rent is relevant to the decision to be made.

A3 (C2): The new dorms would be affordable.

A4 (C3): Building new dorms would increase the enrolments.


The director of student housing argues that to meet the increasing housing needs of the students and to attract more students to study at Buckingham, the college should build some new dorms. To evaluate the argument, we need more evidence about the current and future demand of student dorms, the relative prices of dorm rooms and off-campus housing and the attitudes of prospective students.


The projection that the number of students will double in 50 years is not very useful for evaluating the argument because the new dorms, as planned, will be available in the next 5 years and to decide whether this is necessary we need data for the next 5 years rather than 50 years. Specifically, we want to know whether the number of students who need on-campus housing will exceed the number of dorm rooms available then. A related number we want to know is how many dorm rooms may be unoccupied at present which may tell us more about students preference of dorm rooms over off-campus housing. If the expected demand of dorm rooms exceeds the current supply, maybe we need to build more dorms. Otherwise, the proposal is not reasonable.


We also need to know more about the rents of current dorm rooms, new dorm rooms as well as off-campus housing. The data about the average rent of the apartment in town is not very useful as it includes apartments that may be far away from the campus and therefore not available to Buckingham students. It would be more useful to look at the average rents of the off-campus apartments that Buckingham students usually chose to live in and see if these apartments will become increasingly expensive in future. In addition, it would help to compare the rents of the off-campus apartment with the current fees for the dorm rooms as well as the expected costs of new dorm rooms. If the dorm rooms will be more expensive than the off-campus apartments, it would be pointless to build new dorms to help ease the financial burden of Buckingham students.



Argument范文与提纲目录(tesolchina)
https://bbs.gter.net/thread-2030117-1-1.html