【Clover】Argument174 by taotaole

taotaoleUID: 2694983

A174
The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College, a private institution, to the college's governing committee.
"We recommend that Grove College preserve its century-old tradition of all-female education rather than admit men into its programs. It is true that a majority of faculty members voted in favor of coeducation, arguing that it would encourage more students to apply to Grove. But eighty percent of the students responding to a survey conducted by the student government wanted the school to remain all female, and over half of the alumni who answered a separate survey also opposed coeducation. Keeping the college all-female, therefore, will improve morale among students and convince alumni to keep supporting the college financially."限时的结果好像是花了70m写完的~

In the recommendation the president and administrative staff try to maintain the college all-female in the aspects of the students and alumni. They judge from two survey result and assume the potential benefit for the maintenance. At first sight it seems to be a solid recommendation, but after carefully scrutinize, we can find the recommendation is unreliable.
Firstly, the evidences in the recommendation opposing the coeducation are not strong enough, nor convincing. In the recommendation, it offers two parts of survey result to deny the coeducation. It cited a survey conducted by the student government, showing eighty percent of the respondents' hope to keep the school all female. However, we have to notice that the respondents are all the female students, who have already been studying in the college, meaning that they have refused to enter a coeducational one. In such scope, the result of eighty percent is not convincing because the sources are from the partial respondents and it cannot represent the actual situation. As for the separate survey from the alumni, the same problem remains. All the alumni are graduated from the all female college, which influence their ideas on coeducation. Besides, all the two surveys provide only percentage result; there is doubt for the total number and selective representatives to the survey.
Granted the effectiveness of the surveys about the students and alumni, there is even more serious fallacy in the assumptions followed. Even though the most of students prefer the present situation, it is unwarranted assumption that to maintain the college all-female results improvement on morale among students. The morale of students can be improved through the success the college achieves or the application of a student-benefit policy, but not the maintenance of the educational model. What's more, the attitudes of over half of the surveyed alumni on opposing coeducation doesn't surely to result the decrease on financial support, nor the continue support for the keeping all-female. The reasons for most alumni to offer financial support to their home college are various; while the primary one is that they are gratitude for what the college has improved them, so they want to support the college for its goodness. As long as the change of coeducation is good for the college, most alumni will still provide their support. However, the arguer subjectively relates the contradict relation between coeducation and alumni support.
Finally, the assumptions made from the surveys are nonrelated opponents for the previous vote. The majority faculty members vote to favor coeducation, in order to gain wider applicants to the college. To deny the vote, the recommendation should focus on that the purpose to attract more students cannot be reached, offering how the college attractions to mainly girls and few boys. In contrast, the recommendation finds its evidences via two survey and the unwarranted assumptions based on them, without reasonable explanations through the survey. For example, the assumption about morale can be demonstrated as the new model will harm those choose the college for its all-female education, abate the morale and thus affect the performance of those students, therefore, influence those potential applicants.
In conclusion, the recommendation to keep the college all-female is not persuasive and reliable. To make it more effective, the president and staff should construct the suggestion through clear and convincing evidence with proper demonstration and attack the opposed measure more specifically.

桔子susanUID: 2754084

taotaole,我今天再看了看这篇文章，对第一段还是有些迷惑。你反驳的到底是什么？貌似你的论证都在说，因为学生和校友都在女校学习，所以她们的意见不客观？所以反对coeducation的理由不足？我有些困惑，作者的逻辑链不是（通过这两个调查，认为应该保持女校的形式，这样有利于增长士气和说服校友继续提供财政支持），那么即使回答不客观，也不会影响到作者的推论。或者你想反驳的是不能因为作者的这个推论，就反对coeducation，不过作者只是通过这个推论来建议保持女校传统。（只是建议）（我认为这两个survey是来支持作者的推论的，直接用来作为你的TS句的论据有些跳跃）我看了看misir的文章，她的第二段，和你的这个TS相似，不过论证完全不同，你可以参考一下。