Argument17 【Persistence小组】第4次作业

小驴子UID: 2222683

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."

提纲：1. Firstly, one of the reasons claimed by arguer is that EZ Disposal collected trash twice a week, which was more than ABC.
     2．Secondly, EZ’s order of additional trucks and exceptional service are also mentioned by the arguer.
     3．Thirdly, the argument can be better supported if the arguer could give more information on how the survey was done.

The arguer concludes that Walnut Grove’s town should continue using EZ Disposal. To support the conclusion, the arguer points out that EZ collected trash twice a week while ABC only collect once and EZ was more popular in Walnut Grove's town. However this evidence is not concrete enough to convince me. After reading the argument carefully I found that there are several logical flaws in the editor’s argument which reflect its bias in nature followed by a false deduction. I will evaluate and point out the following mistakes the editor has made in his claim.

Firstly, one of the reasons claimed by arguer is that EZ Disposal collected trash twice a week, which was more than ABC. This is based on a questionable assumption that citizen lived in Walnut Grove's town had so much trash to throw away that only once collection a week cannot meet the demand, which is not mentioned by the arguer. Different family has different situation. We cannot assert that twice collection is necessary to every family. In fact, there are still some families which prefer to pay less money rather than having two chances a week to throw away their just-a-small-amount of rubbish while they don’t bother to keep them actually.

Secondly, EZ’s order of additional trucks and exceptional service are also mentioned by the arguer. On the one hand, we don’t know what the real use of these trucks and the services are, which the author didn’t give us a specific description. Maybe they were all used in some other aspects. On the other hand, whether people in Walnut Grove's town need these trucks and services are not clearly raised. And  I think this actually would have misled the readers of that newspaper who are also going to have this kind of service, because the arguer haven’t told us if ABC also has additional trucks’ order and the service. Indeed when ABC Waste sees their disadvantage they may plan to purchase more trash trucks and provide more services to compete with EZ Disposal.

Thirdly, the argument can be better supported if the arguer could give more information on how the survey was done. To begin with, the arguer does not make it clear of the total number of citizens who participated in the study. If it only surrounds a very limited number of people, the result would be unwarranted. Also, from the study quoted in the argument, we find no sign of such procedures for random sampling, and have good reason to doubt if the sample is representative enough to reflect the general conditions of the citizens as a whole. In addition, the arguer commits a fallacy of hasty generalization. If the people be chosen only familiar with the service of EZ, this group of people can not represent all the others since they were under different environment.

In summary, this argument is not persuasive as it stands. To make it more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more evidence concerning the situation of people lived in Walnut Grove's town and more information about ABC Disposal.

限时45min 字数513

[ 本帖最后由 小驴子 于 2007-2-6 17:49 编辑 ]

欣馨之火UID: 2183210

The arguer concludes that Walnut Grove’s town should continue using EZ Disposal. To support the conclusion, the arguer points out that EZ collected trash twice a week while ABC only collect once and EZ was more popular in Walnut Grove's town. However this evidence is not concrete enough to convince me. After reading the argument carefully I found that there are several logical flaws in the editor’s argument which reflect its bias in nature followed by a false deduction. I will evaluate and point out the following mistakes the editor has made in his claim.

Firstly, one of the reasons claimed by arguer is that EZ Disposal collected trash twice a week, which was more than ABC. This is based on a questionable assumption that citizen lived in Walnut Grove's town had so much trash to throw away that only once collection a week cannot meet the demand, which is not mentioned by the arguer. Different family has different situation. We cannot assert that twice collection is necessary to every family. In fact, there are still some families which prefer to pay less money rather than having two chances a week to throw away their just-a-small-amount of rubbish while they don’t bother to keep them actually.

Secondly, EZ’s order of additional trucks and exceptional service are also mentioned by the arguer. On the one hand, we don’t know what the real use of these trucks and the services are, which the author didn’t give us a specific description. Maybe they were all used in some other aspects. On the other hand, whether people in Walnut Grove's town need these trucks and services are not clearly raised. And I think this actually would have misled the readers of that newspaper who are also going to have this kind of service, because the arguer haven’t told us if ABC also has additional trucks’ order and the service. Indeed when ABC Waste sees their disadvantage they may plan to purchase more trash trucks and provide more services to compete with EZ Disposal.

Thirdly, the argument can be better supported if the arguer could give more information on how the survey was done. To begin with, the arguer does not make it clear of the total number of citizens who participated in the study. If it only surrounds a very limited number of people, the result would be unwarranted. Also, from the study quoted in the argument, we find no sign of such procedures for random sampling, and have good reason to doubt if the sample is representative enough to reflect the general conditions of the citizens as a whole. In addition, the arguer commits a fallacy of hasty generalization. If the people be chosen only familiar with the service of EZ, this group of people can not represent all the others since they were under different environment.

In summary, this argument is not persuasive as it stands. To make it more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more evidence concerning the situation of people lived in Walnut Grove's town and more information about ABC Disposal.

• 首先，整个论证遵从了常见的思路。（《argument就应该这样写》似乎是你放到“共享”的，大概你觉得它没有说服力？我倒觉得它很有道理，所以遵循了它的思路了。汗！）
  
• 其次，论证的逻辑层次、结构很清晰。我想，针对这道题，大多数gter能做到这个程度。而你的语言比较流畅（我还是先假设你的拼写、语法错误都很少），所以，分数应该不低。（这点意见和《argument就应该这样写》的作者相悖了。但老实说，我虽然被他论证方法说服，但是，对于如何拿高分这个，他还没能说服我，毕竟，ets聘请的阅卷人不是他。）
  
•   语言文字上基本没什么改动，呵呵。如果不是你，那就是word减轻了我的工作量，thanks God! (^_^)
  
• 而你在45分钟之内写到这个字数和程度，天啦，我想你打字速度也不用练习了！（我的神啊，你很让人自卑诶！下次还是别改你的好了。）

[ 本帖最后由 欣馨之火 于 2007-2-5 07:11 编辑 ]