【八九点钟小组】 A 241

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT241 - The following appeared in a memo at the XYZ company.

"When XYZ lays off employees, it pays Delany Personnel Firm to offer those employees assistance in creating resumés and developing interviewing skills, if they so desire. Laid-off employees have benefited greatly from Delany's services: last year those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not. Recently, it has been proposed that we use the less-expensive Walsh Personnel Firm in place of Delany. This would be a mistake because eight years ago, when XYZ was using Walsh, only half of the workers we laid off at that time found jobs within a year. Moreover, Delany is clearly superior, as evidenced by its bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. After all, last year Delany's clients took an average of six months to find jobs, whereas Walsh's clients took nine."

In this argument, the writer states the evidences that the Walsh Company did not do well eight years ago and the Delany is more superior than Walsh, supported by two other illustrations mentioned in the argument. Therefore, the author thinks that it is a mistake to use less-expensive Walsh Personnel Firm instead of the Delany Personnel Firm. However, there are some facilities making the writer fail to convince the reader.

From the every beginning, the most important logic mistake in the argument is that the author mistakes the quality of service is the only criteria on this issue. Before any decision is made, the company needs to compare the cost and benefit. Thus, the quality of service offered by the two companies can not be the only standard. For example, recently, XYZ may be not as profitable as before, thus they ought to save money to prevent the company from breaking down. If so, it is reasonable for the company to choose the less-expensive Walsh Personnel Firm to replace the used one even though Delany can provide more effective help to the laid-off employees. Therefore, we can realize the authore has made a big mistake that he/she fails to take other factors into considerations.

The next flaw is that the author thinks that the Walsh can not work well based on its performance eight years ago. However, this result should not be the reason for the conclusion because it has been eight years. The un-expecting result might caused by many other factors. For example, other companies at that period of time did not want to employ more employers for the case of the economic crisis and, nowadays, most companies, which have suffered from the crisis,

need to employ more people to rebuild the company. Thus, Walsh may be probably qualified enough to meet our requirements. Hence, the evidence that the Walsh did not perform well eight years can not make the reader believe that it will not satisfy the XYZ Company.

At last, the author declares that Delany Personnel Firm is more superior supported by the facts that there are more employers and branch offices and people who use Delany could find jobs with a shorter period of time. However, there is no direct relation between the facts and the conclusion. The number of branch offices and the staff does not mean they are more professional. If the employers in Delany are fresh without enough necessary experience, they can hardly solve the real problems and handle various situations well. In addition, it may be the clients of Delany are more skillful that Delany's clients took less time, compared with Walsh's, to find jobs. Thus, based on the reasons I mentioned above, we fail to build a direct relation between the evidences and the conclusion.

To sum it up, the writer makes a big mistake when considering the issue. Moreover, the author does not convince readers that Delany is more superior to Walsh with the illustrations in the argument.