Argument181

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT181 - From a letter to the editor of a city newspaper.

"One recent research study has indicated that many adolescents need more sleep than they are getting, and another study has shown that many high school students in our city are actually dissatisfied with their own academic performance. As a way of combating these problems, the high schools in our city should begin classes at 8:30 A.M. instead of 7:30 A.M., and end the school day an hour later. This arrangement will give students an extra hour of sleep in the morning, thereby making them more alert and more productive. Consequently, the students will perform better on tests and other assignments, and their academic skills will improve significantly."

In this argument the arguer concludes that the high schools in our city should begin classes one hour later to ensure enough sleep hours for the students and in turn improve the academic performance skills of students. This argument processes several critical logical problems and thus is not convincing.

The major problem of the argument is that more sleep hours are not necessarily equal to better performances and academic skills. There is no evidence to show that the dissatisfaction with students own academic performance is the result of lack of sleep. In fact, there are more factor than one affecting the academic performance and skills, such as endeavor, the method of study, and the ability of learning. A case in point is that, if the students take most of their time in playing football, more sleep can only contribute to his improvement of football-playing performances and skills instead of academic ones.

Another problem of the argument is that there is no evidence to show that the students in the high schools are lack of sleep. The study of the adolescents sleep condition is lack of credit for absent detail information. We have no idea about the situation and the total amount of the candidates in the survey, so it might be hesitate to generalize that the same condition is true among the high school students in our city. And it might be of little reference value if it is conduced in another city the conditions of which are complete different with theirs. And the world “many” refers to what percent of the total amount is unknown. If there are one million persons participate this survey, one thousand of them, which can be consider as many to some extent, only represent 0.1 percent of the total.  

What's more, even the time of the beginning of school is postponed by one hour, there is no ensure the students process enough sleep and the arguer unfairly assume that the students would use the extra hour in sleep. Maybe the students need just one and a half hour more sleep or two hour sleep and in such case the one hour postpone of the school beginning time will not solve the problem of lack of sleep. Worse still, students may sleep later considering that they can get up later. For example, they are used to sleep at 10:00 and get up at 6:00 with 8 hours sleep, but now they might go to bed as late as 12:00 and get up at 7:00 with only 7 hours sleep.

To sum up, the argument is unpersuasive for the evidences cited by the arguer do not lead strong support to the conclusion. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer should provide more detail information about the relationship of the later opening of school and the academic performance of students and make the assumption that the high school students in our city are lack of sleep more believable. （492 worlds）