Argument17 [清凉夏日2小组]第一次作业

leonnieUID: 2216142

题目：ARGUMENT 17 - The 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."
字数519用时：日期：2006-7-16

The arguer recommends based on the comparative analysis of the advantages of EZ Disposal and the disadvantages of ABC Waste that Walnut Grove’s town council(WG) should continue to contract with EZ and abandon to swith to ABC.In addition, the author assumes that EZ rising up their monthly fee leads to WG abnegate the contract with EZ. It is an reasonable argument at first glance but a close scrutiny would reveal how groundless the recommendation is.

In the first place, the arguer commits a false assumption. According to the author, WG change their mind to use ABC because the EZ, which collected waste for WG before, raised their monthly fee by $500 while ABC’s fee is still $2,000 a month. In fact, there is no evidence presented illustrates this causal relationship. Maybe this is just a temporal coincidence. Perhaps WG choose ABC for some other reasons such as ABC offer better services, ABC cllects waste more punctual or maybe ABC has a more effective collecting systerm. Therefore, it is arbitrary to attribute the WG’s behavior to the EZ’s fee.

In the second place, the author believe EZ is superior to ABC for the facts that EZ collects trash twice while ABC only once; EZ has ordered more trucks than WG. The author’s assumption suffers from some critic fallacious. For one thing, EZ is not suitable for WG if WG is a small town which need only once trash—cllecting a week since it is a waste of money to dispose trash twice a week. For another, there is no illustration that the 20 more trucks of EZ are indeed used for collecting rubbish of WG. Even if the 20 more trucks are used for WG, which is, of course, an unwarranted assumption,it is unguranteed that the their servises are as nice as other trucks working for WG before. Hence, the facts the author cited is questionable and unsustainable to the recommendation.

Finally, the study the author cited is unpersuasive as it stands. According to the author, the study surveyed in last year, but we could not know where and howdid this survey has taken. Perhaps, the investigation took in the region where is served by EZ only or maybe there is only a small number of people investigated. If this is the case, the result is unconvincing since it ignored the people who are served by the ABC. Moreover, we are informed that there is 80 percent of respondentssatisfied with the service of EZ, however, there is no evidence that these respondents are unsatisfied with ABC. Perhaps these people is more content with the work that ABC has done. Thus, this survey is unpersuasive.

In sum, the author fails to recommend the WG to continue contracting with EZ in the future’s trash collecting. To strenghten the recommendaton, the author must provide the evidence that the reason why WG begins to use ABC is because the increasing fee of EZ as wekk as the evidence that the 20-more trucks of EZ are used to sollect the rubbish of WG. To evaluate this argument, we need more information about the survey.

[ 本帖最后由 leonnie 于 2006-7-16 23:00 编辑 ]

Amelia1214UID: 2228270

先占个位，明天来拍