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Chapter 3: Analysis of Argument
What is an Argument?
A strong argument attempts to persuade the reader to accept a point of view. As such, it consists of a proposition, a declarative statement which is capable of being argued, and a proof, a reason or ground which is supported by evidence. The evidence, in turn, is composed of relevant facts, opinions based on facts and careful reasoning. If you are analyzing an argument, you should look for both of these: a proposition and the evidence supporting the proposition.
In the same way that an analysis of issue essay must start with a thesis, so also an essay that analyzes an argument must start with a topic sentence which provides for the analysis of a proposition. Every argument should have a proposition, and the identification of this proposition is crucial to the writing of an analysis of an argument. For instance, the following could appear in the analytical writing section of the GMAT:
The two clauses beginning with since provide evidence in support of the proposition. In turn, the proposition itself is framed by the second sentence.
Since the world population will double to 11 billion people by the middle of the 21st century and since food production will not show a corresponding increase, efforts should be made to limit population growth. Governments must institute population control policies to insure an adequate food supply for future generations.
One aspect of argumentation that needs special attention is the use of terms. In an argument, all of the terms should be clear and well-defined. If the terms are unclear, proof is likely to be impossible, creating a weak argument. One type of weak term is the emotionally loaded term. Terms such as "socialized medicine" evoke emotional responses and, thus, obscure the argument. Thus, anyone who writes an analysis of an argument should examine the terms used and be sure that the writer avoids emotive, subjective terms. To the extent of your ability, make sure that the writer defines terms clearly and objectively.
In addition, the people who write and grade the analysis of an argument section for the GMAT expect the following:
i) They want an essay that analyzes the several aspects of the argument with critical insight.
ii) They want a cogently developed essay that is logical.
iii) They want a coherent essay with well-chosen transitional devices.
iv) They also expect an essay that uses varied sentence structure and vocabulary.
v) They expect an essay that is free of mechanical errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and errors in the use of standard written English.
As in the case of the analysis of the issue, the topic sentence must contain the germ of the idea that permeates the entire paragraph. Each example or illustration must be connected to that idea with transitional markers such as for example, furthermore, therefore, thus or moreover.
3a. Dissect Arguments
ASSUMPTION HUNT: On Analysis of Issue questions you try to answer grand issues such as "Should China be in the WTO", or "Should parents have vouchers to send children to the school of their choice". The questions are different than Analysis of Argument, where you look for badly flawed reasoning. The difference between Analysis of Issue and Analysis of Argument is that reasonable people could differ on Analysis of Issue, but no reasonable person would absolutely support something in an Analysis of Argument question. When you are doing Analysis of Argument questions, look for reasoning fallacies.
The Stimulus
In the first part of the Analysis of Argument topic, the writer tries to persuade you of their conclusion by referring to evidence. When you read the "arguments" in these questions, be on the lookout for assumptions and poor logical reasoning used to make a conclusion.
The Question Stem
Question stems will ask you to decide how convincing you find the argument. You will be asked to explain why an argument is not convincing, and discuss what might improve the argument. For this task, you'll need to: first, analyze the argument itself and evaluate its use of evidence; second, explain how a different approach or more information would make the argument itself better (or possibly worse).
A question stem might look like this:
In many countries, including the USA, the postal service is a quasi-governmental organization whose primary mission is to deliver mail to individuals within the borders of the country. Since, it is argued, mail delivery to rural addresses where the population is sparse cannot be done economically under any acceptable circumstance; the postal service is given a monopoly on mail delivery. Actually, however, mail delivery could be done economically by private corporations as long as each corporation were given a monopoly to service any given area where sparsely populated areas were balanced against densely populated areas.
How would you address this argument?
1) Explain how logically persuasive you find this argument... analyze the argument's line of reasoning and use of evidence.
Translation: You should critique the argument. Discuss whether you think it's convincing or not and explain why.
2) Explain what, if anything, would make the argument more valid and convincing or help you to better evaluate its conclusion.
Translation: Spot weak links in the argument and offer changes that would strengthen them.
Attack the Argument
Each argument's stimulus has been intentionally "loaded" with flaws (fallacies) that you should acknowledge and discuss. If you fail to see the more fundamental problems in the argument, you will not get a high score.
The purpose of the essay is for you to critique the reasoning in the argument (the stimulus will tell you to make this evaluation). Your personal opinions are not relevant. Your essay needs to focus on flaws in the argument. While in the Analysis of Issue you write your opinion on a subject, in the Analysis of Argument you write a logical critique of a flawed argument. Thus, the approaches to the two essays should be different.
Evaluate the Argument
Pick out flaws in the argument by identifying its weaknesses:
• What is the argument's conclusion?
• What is the basis of the author's conclusion?
• Do you find the argument persuasive? What makes it persuasive or not persuasive?
• What could be done to strengthen the argument?
• What assumptions does the argument rely upon? (there should be several)
SAMPLE ARGUMENT
For example, the GMAT test may present a statement such as the following for the analysis of an issue:
In many countries, including the USA, the postal service is a quasi-governmental organization whose primary mission is to deliver mail to individuals within the borders of the country. Since, it is argued, mail delivery to rural addresses where the population is sparse cannot be done economically under any acceptable circumstance; the postal service is given a monopoly on mail delivery. Actually, however, mail delivery could be done economically by private corporations as long as each corporation were given a monopoly to service any given area where sparsely populated areas were balanced against densely populated areas.
How would you address this argument?
In the above argument for analysis, the proposition is contained in the last sentence of the stimulus and so the analysis of the argument must focus on this sentence. They are trying to argue for the privatization of the postal system.
I. The proposition regarding the privatization of the post office is based on two questionable assumptions and is most likely not true:
A. Population in the USA is distributed in such a way that postal market areas can be divided and costly market areas can be balanced against lucrative market areas.
B. Private corporations are more cost effective than quasi-governmental organizations.
II. Postal markets cannot be distributed so that service to any given market is economical:
A. reason for the distribution of population
B. effect of that distribution on geographically contiguous areas
C. effect of that distribution on geographically non-contiguous areas
III. Private corporations are not necessarily more cost efficient than quasi-governmental corporations.
A. case of defense contractors
B. case of private corporations
IV. The case for the privatization of the post office department is based on questionable assumptions.
The idea that the post office department can be privatized is based on two questionable assumptions: In the first place, it can be shown that population in the USA is not distributed so that postal market areas can be divided with the result that costly market areas are balanced against lucrative market areas. In the second place, it can be shown that private corporations are not necessarily more cost effective than quasi-governmental organizations. It is, therefore, most likely that privatization of the post office department cannot be accomplished.
In the first place, due to mechanization, one worker on the farm can support at least three hundred people living in the city. Large combines with relatively small crews can roll across the prairies harvesting 500 ton of wheat in a day, enough to feed hundreds of people for a year. As a result, there has been less and less employment in rural areas and, as a further result, people have left the rural areas for life in the city, creating the contemporary dilemma for postal planners. It is easy to distribute tons of mail to big city dwellers in high rise buildings at a reasonable cost. But who is going to find a cost effective way to deliver a single first class letter twenty miles down a country road in a snowstorm in January? Therefore, postal markets cannot be distributed so that service to any given market is economical using contiguous geographical markets.
Perhaps the answer lies in distributing the cost of mail delivery by balancing a cost intensive market area such as rural up-state New York with a lucrative market area such as New York City. On examination, however, this turns out to be an impossibility because population simply is not distributed in neatly balanced areas for reasons noted in the preceding paragraph. Albany, New York, probably has a greater population than the entire state of Wyoming. Is a single company going to be given Wyoming and Albany as a single market area? If so, that company will not be able to service the area economically because the costs of doing business over such a long distance are extremely high. The current post office department, in effect, already does this and it has found it to be not economical. Clearly, it is also true that postal markets cannot be distributed using noncontiguous geographical markets, so that service to any given market is economical.
Furthermore, not all private corporations are economical. The federal government has always subsidized defense contractors rewarding them for their inefficiencies with huge cost over-runs. Besides this, any number of large private corporations have gone bankrupt including Continental Airlines and Pan American Airways. Would any social planners want postal delivery discontinued to any area because a large, privatized postal company declared bankruptcy?
The argument that the post office department can be privatized is based on two questionable assumptions. It is therefore most likely that this argument is invalid (1) because populations are not distributed in such a way that large, regional post offices could be run economically, and (2) because private corporations are not necessarily cost efficient and economical.
Notice that this essay states two assumptions and then spends three paragraphs elaborating on the two main assumptions. The overall structure is tight (perhaps a few sentences could have been edited and paragraphs 2 and 3 condensed into one paragraph). Either way, this is a 5 or 6 essay.
One element here is that problems with the stimulus is strictly assumptions: about the economics of running a post office and the assumption of private sector superiority over public sector. In most of the essays there are glaring logical flaws. We identify these common errors in the next chapter.
3b. Analysis of Argument: Finding Errors
The Usual Suspects: Common Logical Fallacies
We have identified seven logical errors that appear commonly in the essay questions. When writing your essay argument you should explicitly identify the logical flaw. These flaws also tend to occur in the critical reasoning section of the Verbal GMAT, so your preparation here will benefit you when taking the Verbal section.
The E-rater will look for how well you express that you have identified the logical reasoning flaws. When you find an error, specifically identify it in the essay "this is a biased-sample fallacy." The E-rater will detect that you have identified the argument's flaw and will favor your essay.
1. Circular Reasoning
Here, an unsubstantiated assertion is used to justify another unsubstantiated assertion, which is, or at least could be, used to justify the first statement. For instance, Joe and Fred show up at an exclusive club. When asked if they are members, Joe says "I'll vouch for Fred." When Joe is asked for evidence that he's a member, Fred says, "I'll vouch for him."
2. The Biased-Sample Fallacy
The Fallacy of the Biased Sample is committed whenever the data for a statistical inference are drawn from a sample that is not representative of the population under consideration. The data drawn and used to make a generalization is drawn from a group that does not represent the whole.
Here is an argument that commits the fallacy of the biased sample:
ln a recent survey conducted by Wall Street Weekly, 80% of the respondents indicated their strong disapproval of increased capital gains taxes. This survey clearly shows that increased capital gains taxes will meet with strong opposition from the electorate.
The data for the inference in this argument are drawn from a sample that is not representative of the entire electorate. Since the survey was conducted of people who invest, not all members of the electorate have an equal chance of being included in the sample. Moreover, persons who read about investing are more likely to have an opinion on the topic of taxes on investment different from the population at large.
3. The Insufficient Sample Fallacy
The Fallacy of the Insufficient Sample is committed whenever an inadequate sample is used to justify the conclusion drawn.
Here's an argument that commits the fallacy of the insufficient sample:
I have worked with 3 people from New York City and found them to be obnoxious, pushy and rude. It is obvious that people from New York City have a bad attitude.
The data for the inference in this argument are insufficient to support the conclusion. Three observations of people are not sufficient to support a conclusion about 10 million.
4. Ad hominen
One of the most often-employed fallacies, ad hominen means "to the man" and indicates an attack that is made upon a person rather than upon the statements that person has made. An example is: "Don't listen to my opponent, he's a homosexual."
5. The Fallacy of Faulty Analogy
Reasoning by analogy functions by comparing two similar things. Because they are alike in various ways, the fallacy is that it is likely they will share another trait as well. Faulty Analogy arguments draw similarities between the things compared that are not relevant to the characteristic being inferred in the conclusion.
Here's an example of a Faulty Analogy fallacy:
Ted and Jim excel at both football and basketball. Since Ted is also a track star, it is likely that Jim also excels at track.
In this example, numerous similarities between Ted and Jim are taken as the basis for the inference that they share additional traits.
6. Straw Man
Here the speaker attributes an argument to an opponent that does not represent the opponent's true position. For instance, a political candidate might charge that his opponent "wants to let all prisoners go free," when in fact his opponent simply favors a highly limited furlough system. The person is portrayed as someone that they are not.
7. The "After This, Therefore, Because of This" Fallacy (Post hoc ergo propter hoc)
This is a "false cause" fallacy in which something is associated with something else because of mere proximity of time. One often encounters - in news stories- people assuming that because one thing happened after another, the first caused it, as with "I touched a toad, I have a wart, the toad caused the wart." The error in arguments that commit this fallacy is that their conclusions are causal claims that are not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence.
Here are two examples of the After This, Therefore Because of This Fallacy:
Ten minutes after walking into the auditorium, I began to feel sick to
my stomach. There must have been something in the air in that building that caused my nausea.
The stock market declined shortly after the election of the president,
thus indicating the lack of confidence the business community has in the new administration.
In the first example, a causal connection is posited between two events simply on the basis of one occurring before the other. Without further evidence to support it, the causal claim based on the correlation is premature.
The second example is typical of modern news reporting. The only evidence offered in this argument to support the implicit causal claim that the decline in the stock market was caused by the election of the president is the fact that election preceded the decline. While this may have been a causal factor in the decline of the stock market, to argue that it is the cause without additional information and auxiliary hypotheses that make a causal connection plausible is to commit the After This, Therefore, Because of This Fallacy.
8. The Either-or Thinking
This is the so-called black-or-white fallacy. Essentially, it says "Either you believe what I'm saying or you must believe exactly the opposite." Here is an example of the black-or-white fallacy:
Since you don't believe that the earth is teetering on the edge of destruction, you must believe that pollution and other adverse effects that man has on the environment are of no concern whatsoever.
The argument above assumes that there are only two possible alternatives open to us. There is no room for a middle ground.
9. The "All Things are Equal" Fallacy
This fallacy is committed when it is assumed, without justification, that background conditions have remained the same at different times/locations. In most instances, this is an unwarranted assumption for the simple reason that things rarely remain the same over extended periods of time, and things rarely remain the same from place to place.
The last Democrat winner of the New Hampshire primary won the general election. This year, the winner of the New Hampshire primary will win the general election.
The assumption operative in this argument is that nothing has changed since the last primary. No evidence or justification is offered for this assumption.
10. The Fallacy of Equivocation
The Fallacy of Equivocation occurs when a word or phrase that has more than one meaning is employed in different meanings throughout the argument.
"Every society is, of course, repressive to some extent - as Sigmund Freud pointed out, repression is the price we pay for civilization." (John P. Roche- political columnist)
In this example, the word repression is used in two completely different contexts. "Repression" in Freud's mind meant rerstricting sexual and psychological desires. "Repression" in the second context does not mean respression of individual desires, but government restriction of individual liberties, such as that in a totalitarian state.
11. Non Sequitur
This means "does not follow," which is short for: the conclusion does not follow from the premise. To say, "The house is white; therefore it must be big" is an example. It may be a big house but there is no intrinsic connection with its being white.
12. Argument ad populum
A group of kindergartners are studying a frog, trying to determine its sex. "I wonder if it's a boy frog or a girl frog," says one student. "I know how we can tell!" pipes up another. "All right, how?" asks the teacher, resigned to the worst. Beams the child: "We can vote."
This is argumentum ad populum, the belief that truth can be determined by more or less putting it to a vote. Democracy is a very nice thing, but it doesn't determine truth. Polls are good for telling you what people think, not whether those thoughts are correct.
Common Student Errors
We've graded essays from thousands of students and we see recurring errors time and time again. The most common error on the Analysis of Argument essay is "Splitting Hairs."
Splitting Hairs refers to trying to dissect errors that do no fall into the categories listed here. Remember that all questions have SERIOUS errors. The danger is that you could get distracted on a minor issue and miss the serious errors that the E-rater and the grader want to see.
3c. Analysis of Argument: Template
TEMPLATE
As with the Issue essay, there is no single "correct," way to organize an Argument essay. In our view, however, your essay should include separate "introduction" and "conclusion" paragraphs, as well as at least two "body" paragraphs in which you develop your critique of the stated argument. The following template spells out this structure in more detail, and each of the sample Analysis of Argument essays in this book follow this basic pattern.
You do not have to adhere strictly to this format in order to write an effective Argument essay. You may find that some other form works better for you, especially for the body of your essay. Also, the numbers of sentences indicated for each paragraph here are merely suggestions or guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.
(Note: The transitional phrases used here are purposely simplistic; do not simply "parrot" them word-for-word in your essay or adopt a mechanistic fill-in the blank approach. If you do, your essay might appear stilted or contrived.)
Introductory Paragraph (2-4 sentences)
Try to accomplish three goals in your introductory paragraph:
• Briefly restate the argument.
• Briefly trace the argument's line of reasoning.
• Indicate the extent to which the argument is logically convincing.
• If possible, sum up your arguments in one sentence (or two brief sentences).
Here's a sample template for the first paragraph that accomplishes these goals:
The author concludes that____________, because ________. The author's line of reasoning is that ______________. This argument is unconvincing for several reasons; it is____________ and it uses _____________.
First Body Paragraph (3-5 sentences)
In the first body paragraph your goal is to critique one of the following:
• The reasoning of the argument
• One of the premises of the argument
• One of the assumptions of the argument
Here's a sample template for this paragraph that accomplishes this goal:
First of all, ____________________________ is based upon the questionable assumption ________________________________. That _______________,
however, _________________. Moreover, ________________________.
Second Body Paragraph (3-4 sentences)
The purpose of the second paragraph is to address one of the following:
• The reasoning of the argument
• One of the premises of the argument
• One of the assumptions of the argument
Here's a sample template for this paragraph that accomplishes this goal:
Secondly, the author assumes that_________________________.
However, __________________________. It seems equally reasonable to assume that ____________________.
Third (and optional Fourth) Body Paragraph
In this paragraph your goal is to critique one of the following:
• The reasoning of the argument
• One of the premises of the argument
• One of the assumptions of the argument
Here's a sample template for this paragraph that accomplishes this goal:
Finally, _______________________________________. The author fails to consider __________________________________. For example, __________________. Because the author's argument _________________.
Final Paragraph (2-3 sentences)
In the final paragraph your goals are to:
• Summarize your critique of the argument
• State the main point of your essay
The final paragraph is not the placer to introduce new arguments or issues. Sample template:
In sum, I agree that______________________. However, ____________________; on balance, _____________________.
3d. Analysis of Argument: Timing
How to write a 300-word essay in 30 minutes
Sample Essay:
The problem of poorly trained police officers that has plagued New York City should become less serious in the future. The City has initiated comprehensive guidelines that oblige police officers in multiculturalism and proper ways to deal with the city's ethnic groups.
Explain how logically persuasive you find this argument. In discussing your viewpoint, analyze the argument's line of reasoning and its use of evidence. Also explain what, if anything, would make the argument more valid and convincing or help you to better evaluate its conclusion.
Step 1: Dissect the issue/argument (2 minutes)
What is the topic and scope of the argument?
topic: the problem of poorly trained police officers
scope: a given solution, centering on mandatory classes
The argument's conclusion?
The problem of poorly trained police officers that has plagued New York City should become a less serious in the future.
What's the evidence?
The City has initiated comprehensive guidelines that oblige police officers in multiculturalism and proper ways to deal with the city's ethnic groups.
Arguments typically will be structured in one of two ways:
1) conclusion… because…. evidence
2) evidence…. therefore…. conclusion
Summarize the argument:
The problem of poor police officers will become less serious…
(conclusion)
multiculturalism training
(evidence)
How does the argument use its evidence?
It uses evidence of multiculturalism training as evidence to conclude that future improvement is likely.
Step 2: Select the points you will make (5 minutes)
Does the argument make any assumptions? That is, are there gaps between evidence and conclusion?
1. Multiculturalism training will improve the current situation
2. The present police force has poor training in multicultural issues
3. The current police officers in the field will go back for re-training.
Under what circumstances would these assumptions be valid?
1. Evidence making it clear that the present police officers have not already had multicultural training.
2. Evidence showing that multicultural training makes better police officers.
3. Evidence showing that untrained police officers will not be teaching in the future.
Step 3: Organize (1 minute)
Use the pages
Sketch in the outline.
a. State a clear thesis for the essay.
b. Make each heading correspond to a paragraph.
c. Make sure that there are at least five paragraphs.
d. Make sure that each heading corresponds to a topic sentence.
e. Be sure that there is a beginning and ending paragraph, which tie the essay together.
Step 4: Type your essay (20 minutes)
Write your paragraphs in the essay with great care.
a. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence, which relates to the central idea of the entire essay.
b. Everything in each paragraph should support the idea in the topic sentence of the paragraph in (4a) above. For each paragraph, state an idea then give examples to support the idea or explain the idea completely.
Step 5: Proofread the essay (2 minutes)
Make sure your "key" words: transitional phrases, major points, examples, are properly spelled so that the E-rater may identify them properly and know that you have a well written essay.
摘自800scores.com
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发表于 2002-12-11 03:02:19
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