WORDS: 440 TIME:00:30:00 DATE: 2007-7-30 In this argument, the author concludes that Professor Thomas should receive a $10,000 raise and a promotion to Department Chairperson, or she will leave Elm City for another college. However, in my view, without convincing evidence, the argument suffers several flaws. On the first place, the statement claims the fact that classes of Professor Thomas are among the largest at the university indicates her popularity among students. However, it is possible that students have to choose her class, or they will not be allowed to graduate. There is another possible that many students regret choosing Professor Thomas's class. Both possibilities mentioned above will make the statement dubious. Even Professor Thomas is popular among students; the author fails to claim that her teaching and research abilities are strong. In the second place, the author claims that money Professor Thomas has brought to the university in research grants has exceeded her salary in each of the last two years. Without enough evidence, we don't know whether Professor Thomas can also bring so much money in the future. Perhaps, the situation of last two years is just an exception, and Professor Thomas will never bring any money to the university, which makes the evidence provided by author no sense. Even Professor Thomas is popular among student and can bring a lot of money to the university, she is not suitable to get a promotion to Department Chairperson. On one side, Department Chairperson is a person who not only has certain ability in teaching and research but also can deals with details that is boring. There is no evidence that Professor Thomas is such person. On the other side, perhaps, some other people are more suitable than Professor Thomas to be Department Chairperson. The author should offer some more information about the people who are also be nominated to be Department Chairperson. In a word, the author has no convincing evidence to indicate that Professor Thomas is suitable to the Department Chairperson. Finally, the author is so hasty to come to the conclusion the Professor Thomas will leave Elm City University for another college if she is not received 10,000 raise and promotion to Department Chairperson. Perhaps Professor Thomas will never leave Elm City University just because she loves the school. There is another possibility that there are some other reasons which make her leave the school. Even the school offers her more money and Department Chairperson, she will also leave the school. To sum up, the statement is unconvincing. In order to strengthen the argument, the author should provide more reliable evidence and a certain study. Or the author fails to persuade me.