ARGUMENT186 =August Rush=小组第5次作业 by crepuscularlyw

crepuscularlywUID: 2645654

TOPIC: ARGUMENT186 - The following is a recommendation from the director of personnel to the president of Professional Printing Company.

"In a recent telephone survey of automobile factory workers, older employees were less likely to report that having a supervisor present increases their productivity. Among workers aged 18 to 29, 27 percent said that they are more productive in the presence of their immediate supervisor, compared to 12 percent for those aged 30 or over, and only 8 percent for those aged 50 or over. Clearly, if our printing company hires mainly older employees, we will increase productivity and save money because of the reduced need for supervisors."

WORDS: 453
TIME: 00:42:52
DATE: 2009-7-23 23:48:46

In this argument, the president of PPC recommends that the company should hire mainly older employees in order to increase productivity and save money, which based on the assumption that older employees can save money because of the reduced supervisors. Plausible as the facts are, we find they are misleading after deliberation.

First and foremost, reduced supervisors do not mean older people would increase productivity. Arguer's claim based on the evidence that the percent of older people who are more productive in the presence of supervisors is lower, however, older people do not need more supervisors may because they are more experienced but do not necessarily mean that they can work more efficiently. We should not forget, younger people are usually more energetic and dare to meet the challenges, thus young workers may work more efficiently so as to make more money for the company even taken the costs of supervisor into consideration. The arguer should take these possibilities into account so that his claim will be more acceptable.

Secondly, reduced supervisors by old employees do not mean these employees can help the company save more money. Older workers need more care and more free time to adjust himself or herself to deal with the works and they are susceptible to illness since their immune system, physique are not as good as the young people's; this is the reason why older workers need higher welfare, health care and insurance, nevertheless, young people are more healthier and energetic. Time means money to a company and since young people are novices to the company so they would not ask for so much, the company may save money from time and money spent on the young employees. In this way, whether or not the money saved by reduced supervisors can cover the extra money spent on these older workers is still a question. In order to make his claim more convincing, the arguer should provide us with some statistics relate to the money spent on the older and young workers.

Thirdly, there are many other reasons that can undermine arguer's claim. For instance, as to a efficient telephone survey, the arguer should provide us some information to justify his claim, the information should concern how large the sample is, how randomly the survey was conducted and whether or not the number of people responded of each group is the same and all of them tell a truth.

To sum up, the argument is not persuasive. To bolster it, the arguer should reason more detailed and reasonable, provide us some statistics about the money spent on the older workers, provide more effective evidence relate to the survey and ruling out other possibilities that would affect the productivity.

这个是直接看题就写的，发现自己短时间内发现错误的能力还真不行，想不出来就楞那了。完全做不到看着题就啪啦啪啦连续打那种，而且开始频繁使用重复的字句，也没来得及用什么高级词汇。。。