[习作点评] 我雪中跪求指点，这篇argue有用模板吗？ [复制链接]

octtty
UID: 2954920

初级会员

Rank: 3 Rank: 3

声望: 2
寄托币: 137
注册时间: 2010-11-14
精华: 0
帖子: 1

电梯直达

楼主

发表于 2011-2-15 20:47:49 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

TOPIC: ARGUMENT203 - The following appeared in a newspaper feature story.

"At the small, nonprofit hospital in the town of Saluda, the average length of a patient's stay is two days; at the large, for-profit hospital in the nearby city of Megaville, the average patient stay is six days. Also, the cure rate among patients in the Saluda hospital is about twice that of the Megaville hospital. The Saluda hospital has more employees per patient than the hospital in Megaville, and there are few complaints about service at the local hospital. Such data indicate that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals."
WORDS: 446
TIME: 00:46:27
DATE: 2011/2/15 20:32:23

In the feature story, the author recommends that treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals is more economical and of better quality than treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. To support this recommendation the arguer cites the data that compared to a large treatment, for-profit hospitals, a smaller, nonprofit hospitals make patients recover more quickly. Additionally, he also points out that Saluda hospital, so called treatment in a smaller, nonprofit hospital, has more employees per patient and get few complaints about service.
Careful examination of this supporting evidence, however, reveals that either of them can not lend credible support to the conclusion.

First, the fact that the average length of a patient's stay time in the Saluda hospital is shorter than that in the Megaville hospital accomplishes nothing toward bolstering the conclusion. Perhaps, patients slightly injured prefer going to Saluda hospital while patients severely injured should go to Megaville hospital, for Megaville hospital have more advanced doctors and more excellent service. In this way, the patients in Megaville hospital might spend more time to recover. Considering this factor, the author can not hastily pointing out the treatment in smaller hospitals is of better quality than that in the larger hospitals.

Secondly, as the arguer omits the injury extent of each patient, the author also can not imprudently draw the conclusion.

Thirdly, as for the service quality, the argument unfairly assumes that the number of patient in both hospitals is the same. However, the data provides no evidence to substantiate these assumptions. Lacking such evidence it is entirely possible that given the smaller number of the patients in nonprofit hospital, the complaints about its service will be less. So, without more information about two hospitals, the author's conclusion seems to be unconvincing.

Finally, even if the arguer can verified the foregoing assumptions, he overlooks that the reliability of the data rests on its statistical integrity. The argument fails to indicate that whether these two hospitals can represent the common treatment in smaller, nonprofit hospitals or treatment in larger, for-profit hospitals. Given that the numbers of surveyed hospital are only two, the reliability of the results are smaller. Again, the smaller the sample, the less reliable the results. In this way, the data in the story seems to be unconvincing, let alone about the conclusion.

In sum, the recommendation relies on certain doubtful assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands. To bolster the conclusion the author must provide more clear data about two hospitals. Moreover, if possible, the author should make a wide range survey to collect more evidence of more hospitals.

Of course, the survey must be more accurate and delicate to give some convincing data to bolster the conclusion.