Argument17 潜移默化小组第2次作业 paipai

keyyhemaUID: 2297024

TOPIC: ARGUMENT17 - 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."
WORDS: 397          TIME: 0:47:14          DATE: 2007-2-11
1.dose the town need to collecting trash twice a week?
2.are  EZ's trucks more than ABC's?
3.the authenticity of the survey would be doubted.

In this letter, the author recommends that Walnut Grove's town council should continue using EZ Disposal to collect their waste for the reason of EZ provides twice trash collecting a week while ABC Waste collects only once. And the author cites last year's survey result to support his recommendation. In spite of a specious argument, this letter is undermined by some unfounded assumptions and a series of flaws.

Firstly, it seems reasonable to continue using EZ simply because that EZ's frequency of collecting trash is twice than the ABC Waste, while it only charges 25 percent higher than the ABC. Close scrutiny reveals this would not be the case. It is largely possible that the environment protection is popular in the Walnut Grove town and every citizen has a little trash, which do not need twice collection a week. If this is the case, why do we spend another 500 dollars to waste the gas of the trash truck? Without more evidence for collection once a week cannot meet the need of the citizens, a twice collection cannot be the advantage to be comparable to ABC.

Secondly, the author points out there would be an efficient collection offered by EZ Disposal on the fact that EZ, like ABC, has ordered additional trucks. But how do we know that EZ would have more trucks after ordering more cars than ABC? After all, the author does not mention a word about how many trucks EZ has currently. So we cannot make a conclusion on which of them could offer more efficient service ascribes to that we cannot compare the numbers of the trucks.

Thirdly, the survey the author cites would have little use in demonstrate that EZ Disposal deserves more paying than ABC Waste. The authenticity of this survey depends on how many of the Walnut Grove town's residents are involved in this survey. If the proportion takes only a little of the total numbers, this survey as a evidence would be doubted. Perhaps those who agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ' performance also would like to try ABC's service if they known the latter is not so expensive.
In conclusion, this argument should be improved in order to render itself more cogent and sounded. To access to the author's claim, I need to know more details about the environment of the town and the survey as an support.