argument127 by dingyi

dingyi0311UID: 2627919

127The vice president for human resources at Climpson Industries sent the following recommendation to the company's president.

"In an effort to improve our employees' productivity, we should implement electronic monitoring of employees' Internet use from their workstations. Employees who use the Internet from their workstations need to be identified and punished if we are to reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. By installing software to detect employees' Internet use on company computers, we can prevent employees from wasting time, foster a better work ethic at Climpson, and improve our overall profits."

To foster a better work ethic and prevent employees from wasting time , the vice president for human resources recommend that a electronic monitoring of employees`s internet use from their workstations should be implemented. To justify the suggestion, he points out that the the software can reduce the number fo work hours spent on personal or recreational activities, and the overall profit can be improved. The argument sound reasonable at first glimpse, yet, my further reflect reveals that it suffers at least three logical fallacies as follows.

Firstly, the threshold problem of this argument is that the arguer asserts that the workers in the Climpson Industries have wasted a lot of time on personal or recreational activities, such as shopping or playing games. However, the vice president fail to presents any solid evident, therefore, I remain not convince the claim of the arguer. In addition, If there are only one or two employees spent on personal activities, it is wiser to fire the employees rather than implement electronic monitor which may be very expensive.

Another problem that weakens the logical of the argument is that the arguer unfairly concludes that the electronic monitor can prevent employees from wasting time. However, the employees may do other things to kill the time, such us play cards or chat with each other rather than surfing on the internet. If it is true, the monitor will have little use in preventing employees from wasting time.

Moreover, the arguer claim that the software can foster a better work ethic, yet, as it know to us all that the better work ethic can be fostered through other ways, such us good management or the willing of devotion of the member to the company but simply implementing a software.

Finally, the author hastily draw a conclusion that the software can improve the overall profits, indeed, the profit of a company is determined by many other factors, such us the cost of the products, whether the products are welcomed by the consumers, and the price of the products. No matter how hard the employees are, the profit will be altered if the factors discussed above are not changed. Without considering those factors, the presidents could not asserts the overall profits can be improved

In sum the arguer fail to substantiate his claim that using the electronic monitoring can reduce the number of work hours spent on personal or recreational activities and can increase the profits , because the evident and the logical inference do not lead to strong support to what the arguer maintains. To make the argument more convincing, the author need to provide more information on whether the the employees really spend a lot of times on personal activities , whether these activity affect them in finishing their works, and whether reduced the waste time can improve the profit of the company. Therefore, if the argument had included the factors discussed above, It will be more thorough and logically acceptable.