TOPIC: ARGUMENT179 - The following is a memorandum written by the director of personnel to the president of the Cedar Corporation.
"It would be a mistake to rehire the Good-Taste Company to supply the food in our employee cafeteria next year. It is the second most expensive caterer in the city. In addition, its prices have risen in each of the last three years, and it refuses to provide meals for people on special diets. Just last month three employees complained to me that they no longer eat in the cafeteria because they find the experience 'unbearable.' Our company should instead hire Discount Foods. Discount is a family-owned local company and it offers a varied menu of fish and poultry. I recently tasted a sample lunch at one of the many companies that Discount serves and it was delicious-an indication that hiring Discount will lead to improved employee satisfaction."
WORDS: 429 TIME: 0:30:00 DATE: 2006-2-10
(this composition has been revised one time
提纲：
1 价格贵和拒绝提供特殊饮食不代表GT就差
2 抱怨的工人1）未必反映真实意见 2) 不能代表全体员工
3 incomplete analogy DF的其它种类食物呢？它拒绝吗？价格呢？且s sample lunch can represent all the foods supply by DF?
Prior to accepting the author's recommendation that Cedar Corporation should hire Discount Food to supply the food in their employee cafeteria next year, I find the author's argument is not sufficiently supported by the evidence given. The author seems to excessively depend on the incomplete comparison and dubious assumption and that draw a conclusion that is fundamentally groundless.
To begin with, the author unfairly asserts that Cedar Corporation is mistaken to rehire the Good-Taste Company by citing these facts that it is the second most expensive caterer which refuses to provide special diets and raise its prices in the last three years. However, the author obviously overlooks various alternative explanations for these phenomena, for instance, it is highly possible that its comparatively higher prices is due to its superior service, the quality of foods and its reputation. Meanwhile, it is entirely possible that it ameliorates the variety and quality of its foods and services which probably lead to its consideration of ascending its prices. Moreover, the author has failed to inform us whether Discount Foods has similar policy of refusing to provide the special diets, thus, we cannot infer that this strategy will have some bad influence on the employment of Good-Taste Company.
In addition, the three employees' complaints cannot necessarily imply the opinions of all the employees in Cedar Corporation. In the first place, the reliability of the complaints is open to doubt because the author does not tell us the details of the incident. Thus, it is completely possible that they have expressed ideas out of control and distorted the real fact-perhaps they are those who require Good-Taste to provide them special diets and eventually have been refused. In the second place, the sample-the only complaints of three employees is not sufficiently enough to support the author's conclusion. It begs the question: what about other employees? Did they appreciate the food supplied by Good-Taste or not? Or what is the proportion of person who do not care about the food? Without considering and ruling out these and other scenarios, we cannot accept his conclusion
Finally, the author commits a false analogy. By listing the menu of Discount Food which is varied in the fish and poultry, the author neglects informing us other kinds of food Discount supplies such as meat, vegetable, deserts, drink and so forth and furthermore, he also ignores comparing other facets of the two food suppliers, for example, the service, the prices and the credibility. In additional, the author's opinion that he considers the sample food is delicious cannot accurately indicate all the foods it provides for diversified companies are better that those of Good-Taste. Therefore, the author's comparison between the two companies is so partial that we cannot be persuaded by his conclusion.
In sum, the argument is problematic in several aspects as discussed above. To bolster it, the author should provide clear evidence that Discount Food indeed does a better job than Good-Taste not only in foods but also in services. And to further improve it, the author should conduct a survey among his employees and make a concrete and comprehensive comparison between the two food providers.作者: kito9695 时间: 2006-2-10 19:28:13
seat！作者: @amy@ 时间: 2006-2-10 20:15:47
Prior to accepting the author's recommendation that Cedar Corporation should hire Discount Food to supply the food in their employee cafeteria next year, I find the author's argument is not sufficiently supported by the evidence given. The author seems to excessively depend on the incomplete comparison and dubious assumption and that [这儿有点问题，去掉that？还是把that换成then？] draw a conclusion that is fundamentally groundless.
To begin with, the author unfairly asserts that Cedar Corporation is mistaken to rehire the Good-Taste Company by citing these facts that it is the second most expensive caterer which refuses to provide special diets and raise [raised] its prices in the last three years. However, the author obviously overlooks various alternative explanations for these phenomena, for instance, it is highly possible that its comparatively higher prices is due to its superior service, the quality of foods and its reputation. Meanwhile, it is entirely possible that it ameliorates the variety and quality of its foods and services which probably lead to its consideration of ascending its prices. Moreover, the author has failed to inform us whether Discount Foods has similar policy [这个词用的是不是有点“大”？] of refusing to provide the special diets, thus, we cannot infer that this strategy[这个词也感觉有点“大”，呵呵] will have some bad influence on the employment of Good-Taste Company.
In addition, the three employees' complaints cannot necessarily imply the opinions of all the employees in Cedar Corporation. In the first place, the reliability of the complaints is open to doubt because the author does not tell us the details of the incident. Thus, it is completely possible that they have expressed ideas out of control and distorted the real fact-perhaps they are those who require Good-Taste to provide them special diets and eventually have been refused. In the second place, the sample-the only[only是不是放在of后面好一点] complaints of three employees is not sufficiently enough to support the author's conclusion. It begs the question: what about other employees? Did they appreciate the food supplied by Good-Taste or not? Or what is the proportion of person[persons] who do not care about the food? Without considering and ruling out these and other scenarios, we cannot accept his conclusion
Finally, the author commits a false analogy. By listing the menu of Discount Food which is varied in the fish and poultry, the author neglects informing us other kinds of food Discount supplies such as meat, vegetable, deserts [这是？], drink and so forth and furthermore, he also ignores comparing other facets of the two food suppliers, for example, the service, the prices and the credibility. In additional, the author's opinion that he considers the sample food is delicious cannot accurately indicate all the foods it provides for diversified companies are better that [than] those of Good-Taste. Therefore, the author's comparison between the two companies is so partial that we cannot be persuaded by his conclusion.
In sum, the argument is problematic in several aspects as discussed above. To bolster it, the author should provide clear evidence that Discount Food indeed does a better job than Good-Taste not only in foods but also in services. And to further improve it, the author should conduct a survey among his employees and make a concrete and comprehensive comparison between the two food providers [and后面这半句和你前面provide clear evidence that Discount Food indeed does a better job than Good-Taste not only in foods but also in services不是一个意思吗？].