[a习作temp] argument180 infinity第二十七次作业 [复制链接]

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发表于 2006-7-31 09:39:35 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

TOPIC: ARGUMENT180 - The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company.

"Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One graduate of the course was able to read a five-hundred-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Moreover, Easy Read costs only $500 per employee-a small price to pay when you consider the benefits to Acme. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. Clearly, Acme would benefit greatly by requiring all of our employees to take the Easy Read course."
WORDS: 489 TIME: 上午 0:30:00 DATE: 2006-7-30

In the recommendation, the director hastily concluded that Acme would benefit greatly by requiring all of out employees to take the Easy Read. To bolster the recommendation, the author cited successful experience in many other companies. And the author also state statistics about the reading speed of graduates. However, this recommendation is logically flawed in several critical respects.

The first problem involve in the recommendation is that the successful experience in other companies cannot prove the same incentive useful for Acme Publishing Company. It is entirely possible that many other companies' conditions is completely different from the Acme Publishing Company and the reading course would do nothing with the Acme Publishing Company. And also maybe the staffs of other companies are at a very slow speed. Once attending the course, the improvement is very satisfied, whereas the staffs in the Acme Publishing Company are at the quick speed originally. Thus, it does not need to improve the reading speed any more. Without the information about these companies, the author cannot convince me.

Moreover, the author incorrectly contributes the increase speed of reading and the preferment in company to the reading course. Firstly, the author did not mention the reading level of the graduate before attending the reading course. Maybe the graduate would read five hundred pages originally, even after the reading course the graduate, who would read one thousand pages, backslide to the five hundred pages. Secondly, another graduate, who rose from an assistant manager to a vice president of the company in under a year, may be originally considered preferment, while the graduate is just in the reading course. In short, the two extreme examples cannot support the assertion of this argument. Moreover, just two graduates cannot represent the whole graduates as a group.

Furthermore, the author could not effectively support that attending the read course is worthwhile and would bring the benefit to the company. The author cites that the Easy Read costs only $500 per employee-a small price to pay when you consider the benefits to Acme. However, all the employees attending the course would be large amount of money which maybe influences the development of the company. Furthermore, does the faster you read, the more information you can absorb? Is the high reading speed contributable to the development to the company? These answers are no. The author has not shown any correlation with attending the reading course and bringing benefits to the company, let alone a cause-and-effect relationship.

In sum, the recommendation relies on the certain doubtful assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands. To better assess the strength of the recommendation I would need more information about the other companies which gained benefit through the reading course and the graduates reading level before attending the reading course. In addition, without showing a direct cause and effect relationship between gaining benefit and attending the reading course, this recommendation fails to convince on its premise.