Argument17 请指正

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17The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper.

"Walnut Grove's town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, whereas ABC's fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ—which, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks—has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service: 80 percent of respondents to last year's town survey agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ's performance."

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    In this letter, the author argues that Walnut Grove’s town council should not switch from EZ Disposal to ABC Waste. To justify this conclusion the author points out that trash collection frequency of EZ is higher than ABC, and EZ owns more trucks than ABC. The author also cites a survey to show that many people were satisfied with EZ’s performance in the last year. However, the author’s argument is unpersuasive in several aspects.

    First, collection frequency may not influence the collection effect a lot. Maybe Walnut Grove’s town council has not so many trashes to collect, and collecting once a week is enough. If continue using EZ, the council must pay additional 500$ a month, but the effect of collection may be the same as ABC’s service. Moreover, people may concern other service metrics, such as credit and collection technology, more than frequency. Though the collection frequency of ABC is less than EZ, yet it is entirely possible that other services provided by ABC is better than EZ. In this means, using EZ would waste taxpayer’s money.

    Second, the quantity of trucks has no direct relationship with service quality. Though EZ has ordered additional trucks, it is doubtful that all of these trucks are allocated to trash collection in Walnut Grove’s town. Maybe EZ has extended its service to other towns and most of the trucks are used in these towns’ trash collection. Even if EZ allocates more trucks to Walnut Grove’s town than ABC, it can not assure that EZ’s service is better than ABC. The author does not provide concrete comparison of the trucks, such as type, velocity and other metrics that influence the service effect, between the two companies. It is probably that trucks in ABC have better performance and eventually offset the disadvantage in quantity.

    Finally, the survey cited by the author may be statistically unrepresentative. We are not informed enough information about the survey, including the percentage of people participating in the survey, and their genders, ages and occupations. Moreover, the author does not mention the organizer of the survey. We can doubt that this survey is sponsored or even organized by EZ instead of authoritative institutions. In this event, the survey results are unreliable.

    In conclusion, the author’s argument is specious. To bolster it he must provide clear evidence that collection frequency determines the effect of trash collection in the council, and that additional trucks of EZ are allocated to the collection service in Walnut Grove’s town. Detailed comparisons between the trucks of EZ and ABC are also needed. Besides, to better evaluate the author’s claim I would need more information about the survey to justify that the survey results are representative and reliable.