|
TOPIC: ARGUMENT140 - The following appeared in a report of the Committee on Faculty Promotions and Salaries at Elm City University."During her seventeen years as a professor of botany, Professor Thomas has proved herself to be well worth her annual salary of $50,000. Her classes are among the largest at the university, demonstrating her popularity among students. Moreover, the money she has brought to the university in research grants has exceeded her salary in each of the last two years. Therefore, in consideration of Professor Thomas' demonstrated teaching and research abilities, we recommend that she receive a $10,000 raise and a promotion to Department Chairperson; without such a raise and promotion, we fear that Professor Thomas will leave Elm City University for another college."WORDS: 409 DATE: 2007-5-9提纲：1． 指出关于是否称职以及是否愿意离开证据不足，2． 关于popularity是否可信3． Research ability是否可信4． Professor Thomas是否会离开证据不足5． 总结，提出建议In this argument, the author concludes that the Elm City University should offer Professor Thomas a raise and a promotion, for her good performance in the past years. But the author fails to provide substantial data(data confines the style of these information, why not use evidence, information, message or other words?) of how competent Professor Thomas is and whether she is willing(planning) to go to other universities.The first problem of the argument is that the author does not demonstrate how popular Professor Thomas is. Even though her classes are amount(among) the largest ones at the university, there is a good chance that her classes are all compulsory course(s) that the students have to study(coincide with mine, handshake). It is equally possible that the department where(which or the department of Pro. Thomas, concisely) Professor Thomas is in is the largest department(the largest one, better?) which includes the majority of students in the university. In that case, it is very easy(common?) for her classes to be the largest classes(ones) in the university. Thus, without all these details, it is hard to prove that Professor Thomas is competent in teaching.Another flaw in the argument is that whether Professor Thomas has a good research ability is open to doubt. Even it is true that the money she brought about has exceeded her salary in each of the last two years, the data of the other years(the data of other years) of(the) past seventeen years is not provided. In addition, without the comparison with other professors in this department, whether Professor Thomas is a good researcher is also unknown. If other professors bring about far more money than her in each of the year during the past years, at least it can be concluded that Professor Thomas is not as good as other professors, and the university should not worry about whether she will leave.Last but not the least, no evidence shows that Professor Thomas is willing to leave Elm City University for another college. Even it is true that Professor Thomas is very competent both in(in both) teaching and researching; it is quite possible that she is satisfied with her current salary or there are other factors that prevent her from leaving such as the location of her apartment, so she is not intended to leave(This sentence is not well organized). Besides, there is no evidence showing that any other universities are inviting Professor Thomas. Thus, whether Professor Thomas wants to leave is still a question.In conclusion, unless the author provides us more information with respect to the teaching and researching ability of Professor Thomas, along with whether she wants to leave, the recommendation will not be acceptable.
[ 本帖最后由 ghost33 于 2007-5-12 18:27 编辑 ] | 
发表于 2007-5-10 23:07:53
签到领寄托币
GO
转发
