0910AW ARGUMENT17 by iloveusa2009

iloveusa2009UID：2650557

The author asserts that EZ is better than ABC and the Walnut Grove (WG) town council should continue using EZ. To support this argument, the author points out that even though EZ raised its monthly fee from $2000 to $2500, it collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ which currently have the same amount of trucks as ABC has ordered additional trucks. The author also cites last year’s town survey which 80 percent of respondents agreed that they were ‘satisfied’ with EZ’s performance to consider that EZ provides exceptional service. This argument is unconvincing for several reasons.

First, the author provides no evidence that ABC could not provide the exceptional service as EZ. Collecting trash once a week does not mean a badly service. In addition, the author and the citizen could know little about ABC as a result of that EZ has had the contract for trash collection services in WG for the past ten years. Without more information about the service quality of ABC, the author can not justify the conclusion that more $500 is worth to pay for EZ while ABC provides the same service.

Secondly, even if EZ will provide more services than ABC, it does not mean that WG real needs these services. It is more possible that collecting crash once a week will be enough for WG, and therefore twice a week will be wasteful. Otherwise, a correlation between the fact that EZ has ordered additional trucks and it will provide more service to WG does not necessarily infer a causal relationship. No evidence proves that EZ will use these new trucks to collect crash for WG. More possible, they could use these trucks to serve for other town.

Thirdly, the author fails to mention the finance situation of WG town council. If the budget of WG is deficiency, or the town council has other urgent project to invest, then the more $500 will be difficult to afford. Moreover, the author does not show the reason why EZ raised its monthly fee. Perhaps, the ten years contracts for trash collection services lead to a situation that EZ has no competition in WG, so it decides to get more benefits by raising price which cannot be undertaken by WG.

Finally, the survey mentioned in the argument is problematic. The author provides no evidence that the survey’s respondents are representative of the overall group. It is entirely possible that the respondents are mainly people who will be satisfied with EZ, and those who are not satisfied with EZ service may not give any respondence as a result. Moreover, no evidence shows that people would like to pay more about 25 percent fee to enjoy this ‘satisfaction’.

In conclusion, the argument is unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it, the author must show more information about why EZ raised price, and which service they could provide in future. To better assess the argument we would also know the demand of citizen and the finance situation of the town council.