Argument241 飞跃dreams小组-第6次作业

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241. 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 resumès 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."


Word: 381
The speaker states that it is a mistake that the XYZ Company replace Delany by Walsh Personnel Firm (WPF). To substantiate the point, the author gives the facts that Delany has helped a lot in helping laid-off employees and that it has a bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. The arguer also presents that last year the clients of Delany took an average of six months to find jobs, whereas Walsh’s took nine. However, what the author concludes does not make good sense in several points as follows.

Most importantly, the author mistakenly compares the work of Delany in the last year to that of WPF eight years ago. It lends little support to the comparison of the efficiency of the two companies because it is completely possible that it was much difficult to find jobs eight years age than it was last year. If that is the case, maybe WPF can help the laid-off employees find new jobs much easier. Since there is no evidence providing that the employment situations were the same, the comparison just makes no sense.

Secondly, when evaluating the work of WPF, the author gives the fact that only half of the workers they laid off found jobs within a year. However, when considering the work of Delany, there is no time limit. Besides, the average time Walsh’s clients took to found jobs is nine months, so there is another possibility that another half of the laid-off workers were able to find jobs after one year. Since the author only gives the information of one single company, we can not conclude a just comparison.

Last but not least, the speaker believes the bigger staff and larger number of branch offices mean superior work. However, this is not always the case. There is an equal possibility that the WPF works more efficiently even with a smaller staff and less branch offices. And maybe it is just because Delany employs some unnecessary people that its work is more expensive.

To sum up, the conclusion of the author is not reasoned well. The comparison made by the arguer is of little credibility, and the result that the Delany is superior is unconvincing. In order to make the conclusion more credible, the author need to give more information.