argument17【为我所用小组】第三次作业 By usaya

usayaUID: 2374023

TOPIC: ARGUMENT17 - The following appearedin a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper.

"Walnut Grove's town council hasadvocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trashcollection 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. EZcollects 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 lastyear's town survey agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ's performance."
WORDS: 407          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-3-13 21:36:16

In this letter, the author recommends thatWalnut Grove should continue to contract with EZ Disposal. To bolster thisassumption, the author cites several statistics showing that EZ Disposal is abetter choice than ABC Disposal. However, further consideration reveals that itlends little credible support as it stands.

First of all, argument rests on agratuitous assumption that EZ collects trash twice as often as ABC is seemed tobe a persuasive service for EZ. However, no evidence is supported to theassumption. Lacking this evidence, it is entirely possible that the totalamount of trashes that ABC collects are more than EZ collects. Therefore, theauthor cannot justifiably rely on this claim to assert his recommendation.

Another false assumption provided in theletter that EZ ordered more trucks than ABC also cannot prove to be moreeffective in Walnut Grove town. Perhaps most trucks in EZ are aging and will berejected while ABC trucks are almost new and high-performance. Besides, theauthor does not mention when this new order will be accomplished; the later thedelivery date, the less significant this factor should be in Walnut Grove'sdecision.

Finally, the author cites a last year'stown survey in which 80% of respondents are satisfied with the EZ's service.However, the author fails to offer any information about the respondents.Without ruling out the information, it is hardly to determine whether thesurvey results apply generally to the whole population. Further more, theauthor lists no evidence that respondents of survey are representative of theoverall group of people. Lacking such evidence, it is possible that people whoare satisfied with EZ's service were more willing to respond to the survey thanother people were. In short, without better evidence that the survey isstatistically reliable the author cannot draw any firm conclusions about thequality of service.

In sum, the author fails to substantiatehis claim that EZ Disposal is better than ABC Waste, because the evidencescited in the analysis do not lend justifiable support to what author maintains.To strengthen the recommendation the author should provide specific evidence todemonstrate that the total amount of Walnut Grove trash are large and EZ'strucks can surely be in regular use so that EZ is more suitable for WalnutGrove. To better evaluate the argument, the author also should render detailedprofile about the survey's respondents and the total number of the populationcovered in the survey.