【Big Fish】03月01日Argument169-By Edwardlzk

edwardlzkUID: 2676637

终于写进40min啦~~加油加油~~

TOPIC: ARGUMENT169 - The following appeared in a letter from a department chairperson to the president of Pierce University.

"Some studies conducted by Bronston College, which is also located in a small town, reveal that both male and female professors are happier living in small towns when their spouses are also employed in the same geographic area. Therefore, in the interest of attracting the most gifted teachers and researchers to our faculty and improving the morale of our entire staff, we at Pierce University should offer employment to the spouse of each new faculty member we hire. Although we cannot expect all offers to be accepted or to be viewed as an ideal job offer, the money invested in this effort will clearly be well spent because, if their spouses have a chance of employment, new professors will be more likely to accept our offers."
WORDS: 502
TIME: 00:40:00
DATE: 2010-3-1 19:22:15

In this letter, the department chairperson aims to convince us the recommendation that actions should be taken to ensure adequate career vacancies available to the spouse of each new faculty members so that to improve the morale of the entire staff and attracts famous teachers. To support his/her suggestion, a similar and successful example that taken place in Bronston College is attached to the letter. The recommendation raised by the chairman seems advisable, however, several critical flaws can be found that undermine the line of reasoning when the author tries to prove his recommendation.

To begin with, the author fails to establish a causal relationship between the professor's happy mood and their spouses' employments from the survey in Bronston College. Firstly, such sanguine attitude towards life can not be easily reflected by just one single survey. Regardless the question whether the subjects can represent the whole, we should extrapolate the happy living a person lead from many factors and also during a relatively longer time. the result of the study can only shows the day or the following couple of days the professors are enjoying a happy life which may be an ostensible and problematic evidence to support author's assumption. Secondly, even the study shows correctly that all professors are leading a happy life when their spouses are employed, it still lends scant support to cone to the conclusion that these employments result in their sanguine mood and way of living, many other factor such as the coming holiday, the raising salary and a ideal academic environment may also contribute to it.

Moreover, the author commits the fallacy of false analogy since Bronston College can not be compared with Pierce University in many aspects such as the academic reputation, the average rate of employment. Possibilities may lay there when the employment in the region of Bronston College is quite low, thus the professors may be happy when their spouses get their job, however, it may not be the case in Pierce when the circumstance of employment is not so tough.

Lastly, assuming the measures taken place in Bronston can be effective in Pierce University, I also fail to come to the conclusion so easily as the author does. Spouse's job and the happily living mood may not be the only and demanding factors that pushes the scholars to making decision about coming to a new university although it may influence the decision to some extent. Alternatives, even more imperative, should be taken into consideration such as salary, the quality of students. Also, the anticipated raise in morale of new faculty members does not equate the raise of the whole.

In sum, the recommendation rests on several unreliable assumptions that render it unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it, the chairperson should provide concrete evidence to demonstrate why the study in Bronston College is reliable and can apply in Pierce University, and also the reason why these actions may work well in attracting new students and improve the overall morale of the university.