九月PEBBLE ARUMENT17 留链 互拍

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今天刚看见作业，昨天没看到作业， 就自己写了一篇， 先贴上吧， 请大家多拍拍
作业马上写了就补上:)

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."

字数：590  
  
The argument in this letter seems well presented. Comparing with the ABC Waste, the author asserts that the town should continue using EZ Disposal. Close scrutiny of each of the reasons given by the author, however, reveals that it is incredible continuing using EZ.

The author fist asserts that because, during a week, the EZ Disposal collects trash twice while the ABC Waste collect only once, they should use the ABC. Yet, no evidence is given to support the assumption. Admittedly, twice seems more than once, however, it is entirely possible that every time when collecting, EZ only spend half a day, but ABC spends a whole day. Even if they both use a whole day to collect, perhaps ABC is more effective, they can collect all the trash of town only use a day’s time, while EZ could only collect half of the town’ trash. If this is the case, they should surely switch to ABC, because of the high efficiency.

The author also unfairly asserts that EZ is better, because of the additional trucks they ordered. Yet, the author fails to tell us the use of these trucks. Do they use these trucks to collect trashes? Perhaps they start some new services such as transport  goods for some companies, if this is the case, these additional trucks do nothing good to the trash collecting of the town. Even if the trucks are all planning to be used in collecting trashes, however, do they use these trucks in this town? Or do they use these trucks to collect trashes of another town where they have start new business? If so, we could doubt the quality of their service. As they have more jobs to do, they might not as good as before when they only woks for our town. Without being given all the answers to the questions above, the government’s decision should be accept for the monthly fee ABC asked is much less than that the EZ asked.

Finally, the survey quoted in this argument is also unconvincing. First, we are not informed that the survey required that respondents choose their preference between alternatives, if did, then, we are not told that ABC was included in the options, it is entirely possible that ABC was not in the options. Compared with many other companies, EZ is the best, however, when compared with ABC, we are not sure of the answer, perhaps they would choose ABC. Secondly, we are not informed whether the survey responses were anonymous, or even confidential. If they were not, then respondents might have provided responses that they believed their superious would approve of, regardless whether the responses were truthful. Third, we don’t know how many people have been involved in the survey, the statistical evidence of the survey upon which the argument relies is too vague to informative. Perhaps only 10 citizens in the town were involved in the survey, and 80% of them were satisfied with EZ's performance. However, maybe there are 100, or even more person who were not involved in the survey, preferred ABC. Depending on the total number of people in the town, it is entirely possible that large amount of person prefer ABC, if so, then the author’s recommendation might amount to poor advice for the citizens of the town.

To sum up, if the author of the argument wants to persuade us to choose EZ Disposal, he or she has to give us convincing reasons, since the author failed to do so, we could not accept his opinion.

[ 本帖最后由 chenchenfoo 于 2006-8-21 18:16 编辑 ]

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