The following was written as a part of an application for a small business loan by a group of developers in the city of Monroe.
"A jazz music club in Monroe would be a tremendously profitable enterprise. Currently, the nearest jazz club is 65 miles away; thus, our proposed club, the C Note, would have the local market all to itself. Plus, jazz is extremely popular in Monroe: over 100,000 people attended Monroe's jazz festival last summer, several well-known jazz musicians live in Monroe, and the highest-rated radio program in Monroe is 'Jazz Nightly,' which airs every weeknight. Finally, a nationwide study indicates that the typical jazz fan spends close to $1,000 per year on jazz entertainment. It is clear that the C Note cannot help but make money."

Unfortunately I don't find the argument and its premises tenable enough to yield to the stated conclusion. The author's contention that opening a new jazz club in Monroe would be tremendously profitable can be challenged on the grounds discussed in the following paragraphs.

The author mentions that the nearest jazz club to the city is located 65 miles away from it, & the city has no other jazz club. He makes this a reason to believe that their new club would have all the local market available to it. However, the absence of a jazz club in the city itself proves that the local dwellers have little interest in the jazz music, otherwise the city would have been packed with such clubs. So the author's claim does little to substatiate his conclusion.

The author states that over 100,000 people attended Monroe's jazz festival last summer. But this again does little to prove that jazz is highly popular in Monroe. It is possible that these people may have come to attend the festival from the nearby areas, & the actual number of locals
who participated in the festival might have been signficantly low. Moreover the fact that several well-known jazz musicians live in Monroe also does little to prove that jazz is a popular form of music there. These musicians may have their origin from some other places, but may have come to live in the city due to better living conditions prevailing there. The author's next point that 'Jazz Nightly' is the highest rated radio program in Monroe can be challenged on the grounds that author has has not mentioned the precise contents of the program. The radio program may have little to do with the actual jazz music & may have some other attractive features for the listeners.

Even if we yield to the fact that jazz is a popular form of music among people in Monroe, we can't directly conclude that people would be motivated & interested enough to visit a jazz club. There is every possibility that people may be ineterested in listening to the jazz music
only on radio or television, & may have other priorities than attending to a jazz club.

Finally, the author refers to a nation wide survey which indicates that the typical jazz fan spends close to $1,000 per year on jazz entertainment. The author's reliance on this survey to support his conclusion is in no way justified. First the survey is nation-wide & does not just represent the tastes of people of Monroe. Secondly, it refers to the typical jazz fan's average expenditure on jazz entertainment, without stating the actual number of such fans. It is plausible that the actual number of such fans may be so meager that their average spending holds
no value.

In a nutshell the argument's conclusion relies on certain doubtful assumptions & specious reasons that render it unconvincing as it stands. The argument can be made more concrete and persuasive if author provides the results of a survey of Monroe's people reaction to the opening of a new jazz club in their city. It should also find out reasons that why no other company has yet launched a jazz club in Monroe.

15

15

Humans arrived in the Kaliko Islands about 7,000 years ago, and within 3,000 years most of the large mammal species that had lived in the forests of the Kaliko Islands had become extinct. Yet humans cannot have been a factor in the species' extinctions, because there is no evidence to suggest that humans had any significant contact with the mammals. Further, archaeologists have discovered numerous sites where the bones of fish had been discarded, but they found no such areas containing the bones of large mammals, so the humans cannot have hunted the mammals. Therefore, some climate change or other environmental factor must have caused the species' extinctions.

The author’s conclusion that the extinction of large mammal species in the Kaliko Islands was caused by climatic factors rather than human intervention, is based on specious reasoning.

The apparent lack of evidence of ‘significant contact’ between humans and mammals is used to bolster the theory that humans played no role in their extinction. However, the author neglects to define what constitutes ‘significant contact’. It is possible, for example, that the human settlers drove the animals away by their mere presence, or cut down the forests inhabited by the animals and caused them to die out. If this were the case, then humans would certainly be a factor in the mammals’ extinction, even without 'significant contact' (actively hunting or consuming them). Simply because, as the author suggests, humans did not *consume* animals, it does not necessarily follow that they did not have an effect on their extinction.

Moreover, merely because there is an absence of evidence with regard to human/mammal contact, this does not necessarily constitute evidence of absence. The author claims that no sites containing the bones of large mammals have been discovered, yet this does not mean that such sites do not exist. Perhaps the archaeologists have been digging in the wrong places, or perhaps the animal bones were washed out to sea. Furthermore, if the author is using the absence of ossuary evidence to posit the idea that humans could not have caused the extinction, he or she must admit that even an environmental cause would not account for this lack of animal bones.

In order to support the point that humans cannot have hunted the mammals because no bones have been found, the author posits a comparison with the bones of fish, which *have* been discovered on this island. However, on closer inspection, this constitutes a false analogy. Simply because the bones of fish were discarded in a certain way, it does not necessarily follow that the bones of mammals were discarded according to the same procedure. Perhaps it was customary for humans to discard mammal bones – as opposed to fish bones – in a particular way, to which the archaeological record does not attest. There may have been a tradition, for example, in which fish bones were buried, whereas mammalian bones were crushed into a fine powder and scattered to the wind, or cast out to sea.

Even if we are to suspend disbelief and conclude, along with the author, that the presence of humans on the islands has nothing to do with the absence of animals, there is absolutely no evidence to nominate ‘climate change or other environmental factor’ as the reason for the extinction. The author is quick to make this assumption, but does nothing to specify the type of environmental factor (a meteor? Rising sea levels? Global warming?), nor offers any proof to support this assertion. Furthermore, simply because humans have been ruled out as the cause of the mammals’ extinction (according to the author), this does not necessarily mean that the cause is climatic. For example, it is quite possible that a disease could have wiped out the entire mammalian population in those 3000 years.

The argument, as presented in the extract, is deeply flawed. The author assumes that lack of proof is proof of lack, fails to define key words, presents a false comparison between fish and mammals, and neglects to offer evidence to support his or her opinion that the extinction was caused by climate change. He or she would do well to undertake further research, consider other factors, such as mammalian disease, as the cause of extinction, and to remember that merely because there do not *appear* upon first sight to be signs of human intervention, this may not necessarily have been the case

16

The following appeared in a memo from the president of Viva-Tech, a manufacturer of high-tech medical equipment.
"In order to reduce costs, we should close some of our existing small assembly plants and build a large central plant. Grandview would be an ideal location for this new plant. First, of the locations that we have considered, Grandview has the largest adult population, so that we will be able to staff our plant quickly and easily. Second, since the average wage earned by workers in Grandview is less than that in the other locations, we should be able to keep production costs low. Last, as an inducement for us to build there, Grandview's town council has offered to allow us to operate for the first three years without paying city taxes."


ESSAY---
The President of Viva-Tech suggests that the manufacturer should close down the existing small assembly plants and instead open up a large central plant at Grandview. He favours Grandview as the ideal location for the new plant since it has the large adult population that would ensure easy flow of workforce. In addition, the current low wages and city tax exemption for three years convince the President that Grandview would indeed be a good choice. The reasons cited in the memo seem pretty unconvincing and full of loose assumptions to me.

First of all, the assumption that the cost would be reduced, by starting a large plant instead of many small ones, doesn’t hold much weight. No arguments have been given to prove that the central plant would prove more profitable. On the contrary, setting up a larger new plant would require a significant investment and might lead to some additional costs like freight expenses.

Secondly, even the reasons put forth for selecting Grandview as the perfect location are questionable. A large adult population doesn’t necessarily mean a large work-force for the plant. Especially when Viva-Tech is a high-tech medical equipment manufacturer, skillful workers would be needed and people of the required qualifications might not be many in number in Grandview. In such a scenario, they would have to hire people from outside the town and this would only increase the costs. Also, no demographic data about the population has been provided. It might be so that the majority of the population comprises of senior citizens, which are in no way would contribute to the plant's staff.

Thirdly, even though the average wages earned by workers in Grandview might be lesser than that in other locations, this might not be able to keep the production costs low. There is no mention of how less the wages are from the present locations and whether the workers would be willing to work in this particular manufacturing unit for the same wages. In calculating the production costs, factors such as availability of raw materials, transportation, machinery maintenance etc. should be taken into account. It might be possible that Grandview is in a far-flung area and not well connected with the hubs of essential raw materials or that the markets for the final products are situated far away. These causes would then only increase the production costs and make the low wages insignificant.

Fourthly, the memo doesn’t state the figures regarding the taxes in Grandview and the current cities. According to me, a comparison is essential here because even though Viva-Tech might be saving on three year's city taxes, the tax rates might be significantly higher in reality. This would render the rebate useless

17

The following recommendation was made by the Human Resources Manager to the board of directors of the Fancy Toy Company.
"In the last three quarters of this year, under the leadership of our president, Pat Salvo, our profits have fallen considerably. Thus, we should ask for her resignation in return for a generous severance package. In Pat's place, we should appoint Rosa Winnings. Rosa is currently president of Starlight Jewelry, a company whose profits have increased dramatically over the past several years. Although we will have to pay Rosa twice the salary that Pat has been receiving, it will be well worth it because we can soon expect our profits to increase considerably."



The argument relying on the assumption that to increase the profits of Fancy Toy Company, the president Pat Salvo should resign and Rosa Winnings, the president of Starlight Jewelry, should be appointed in Pat’s place is not complete and flawed in several critical respects, since it presents fragmentary evidence. Neither are the premises persuasive nor is the conclusion compelling. There are gaps and loop holes in the logic that make the premises and conclusion untenable, since it ignores certain crucial assumptions. Therefore the argument is the result of a hasty generalization and fails to provide a holistic picture. The following essay will expose these flaws and demonstrate how the argument could be strengthened.


The threshold problem with the argument is that whether the president of Starlight Jewelry will make the same increasing in Fancy Toy Company. The speaker omits the reality that there is a huge difference between the jewelry and toy marketing strategies. That is, it is a large flaw to say that Rosa Winnings will increase the profits of the toy company. Consequently, she can be very succesful in a jewelry company but in the toy company the strategies that she will perform may not be as useful as she had done in her previous company. Moreover, the demands are totally different when we compare both companies. The president of a toy company must take the children demands into consideration and should estimate how a child thinks. On the other hand, the president of a jewelry company must take the adults, especially the women, demands into consideration and should follow the last universal jewelry market production and marketing strategies to understand what women want mostly.

The second problem with the argument is that the speaker only mention the last 9 months to judge the president and says that period will be enough to eveluate, but she/he doesn’t mention and give any information about the previous terms under the leadership of their current president. If the speaker doesn’t elaborate that the profits were as low as those of current time and the profits began to decrease at first time by the leadership of Pat Salvo, the argument will be easily rejected out of hand.

To support my view I want to mention the other crucial flaws in the argument. Firstly, that the only way to increase the profits is replacing the president with new one is not convincing. Because the replacing of the president may not result in an estimated situation and they may consider another possible solution to get around the diminishing of the profits. Besides that the president may not be responsible of that loss and the another person in charge might results in that. Without giving and presenting the whole picture, the argument is really weak.

The other problem with the argument is that they will have to pay more than before if they replace the president. By doing that they risk their future profit estimations, since there is no guaranty that they will compensate that added expenditure.

In sum, the author’s argument is logically flawed, weak on several grounds and therefore unconvincing as it stands. Had the author taken the above discussed factors into view, it would have rendered the argument irrefutable. In a nutshell, without closing the gap and fixing the other problems discussed in this essay, the argument is simply vulnerable to critism.

18

The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.

'Twenty years ago Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. However, my recent interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is false, and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid. Because they are using the interview-centered method, my team of graduate students working in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures.'

My Response:

Dr. Karp presents the conclusion that his working graduate students in Tertia will establish accurate understanding of the child rearing traditions in Tertia and other islands based on a flawed inference that interview-centered technique is far more superior than observation-centered technique.

The conclusion of Dr. Field that childrens of Tertia were reared by the whole community of the island than just by their biological parents is established 20 years ago. This might be the more accurate observation 20 years ago. Things might have changed over these 20 years and community people of Tertia have stopped taking care about other childrens than their own. If this is the case contradictiong the Dr. Field's conclusion and infering that interview-based approach to community study reveals far better details than observation based techniques are highly flawed as he compared the results of study of community that behaved differently over the time.

Moreover the interviews at the most may last for 1 hour. It is natural not just for children for humanbeing of any age to say more about their parents or who they are associated more frequently when someone asks. As far as the observation is considered it takes into consideration of the suffient time that is needed to reveal a paricular detail.
The author makes one more flaw by generalizing that his students will achieve accurate results in studying the other island cultures by using the same interview based technique. Interview based technique work well for islands where people are willing to cooperate with the interviewers. We can't take it for granted that people in all islands are cooperative.
Summarily we can conclude that Dr. Karp is presenting a conclusion based on insufficient and illogically drawn inferences. He might have sthrenghtned his argument by comparing the two techniques results on several island cultures during the same time.

19

the response was written in a timed environment :

The following appeared as a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

"Five years ago, we residents of Morganton voted to keep the publicly owned piece of land known as Scott Woods in a natural, undeveloped state. Our thinking was that, if no shopping centers or houses were built there, Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as a natural parkland. But now that our town planning committee wants to purchase the land and build a school there, we should reconsider this issue. If the land becomes a school site, no shopping centers or houses can be built there, and substantial acreage would probably be devoted to athletic fields. There would be no better use of land in our community than this, since a large majority of our children participate in sports, and Scott Woods would continue to benefit our community as natural parkland."

response :
I find that the argument is not well reasoned. The are specific areas where some evidence would strengthen the argument and there are statements which need corraborative evidence or reasoning. The author has also assumed that the argument would be read with some sentiment in mind , which may not be true.

The authors argument rests on the statement that even after the school is built , a substantial acreage would be available as atheletic fields , thus , leaving ample natural parkland for the community. He has not provided any evidence that all schools always devote substantial premises for atheletic fields. Thus , the contention that substantial acreage would probably be devoted to atheletic fields seems specious.

The author alleges that if a school is built on the Scott woods site , no shopping centers can be built there. His statement is not backed with any reasoning or proof. If the author could state some existing law , or give a logical explanation of his statement , his argument would be stronger.

Since 5 years have passed since the decision to keep Scott Woods in an undeveloped state , the author should provide some statistics of how , if at all , this has befitted the community .

The author concludes that there could be no better use of the land than building a school. The author has not talked about the merits and demerits of any other uses of land. Thus , his conclusion that building a school is the best use is merely an allegation which needs corraboration.
He has , in fact ,not even talked about the merits and demerits of building a school. The author assumes that the reader feels that building a school is the best thing for the community. It is possible that Morganton is innundated with public schools and no more are really required. The author should clearly state what the benefits of building a school are. He has stated that a large majority of children participate in sport. Building a school is not the only way of helping chldren play sport. A gymnasium would also suffice the purpose. Thus , the author should clearly state why building a school is required.

In conclusion , I feel the author should more thoroughly investigate the issue and present a clearer , better reasoned argument.

20

The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College, a private institution, to the college's governing committee.
"We recommend that Grove College preserve its century-old tradition of all-female education rather than admit men into its programs. It is true that a majority of faculty members voted in favor of coeducation, arguing that it would encourage more students to apply to Grove. But eighty percent of the students responding to a survey conducted by the student government wanted the school to remain all female, and over half of the alumni who answered a separate survey also opposed coeducation. Keeping the college all-female, therefore, will improve morale among students and convince alumni to keep supporting the college financially."



The given passage portrays the views of the president and the administrative staff of Grove College regarding the prospective implementation of coeducational system in the college. Although the writer presents certain data to support his views, he fails to make his intentions more cogent by neglecting certain issues.

Primarily, the author fails to educate the reader why the change is intended in the college. The author presents statistics regarding the surveys conducted among the faculty, the students and the alumni to present their views but the reader is in obscurity why the committee has proposed the change. Thus the author would be more informative if he includes the reason for it.

The writer implies in his statements that although a majority of the faculty voted for the new system of education, they must not be paid heed. Thus the decision of the faculty is disregarded in the process. The author fails to deal with the consequences of such a situation, since the faculty usually form the most important section of any academic institution and it would be unwise to challenge their ideas and incur their wrath.

The writer is primarily concerned about the alumni members' opinion for the change, with their financial assisstance in consideration. However, the economic dependency of the college on the alumni is not made evident in the passage. The novel education scheme in the college could as well do away with the monetary obligations of the alumni. Thus evidence that the alumni funds are mandatory for the administration of the college would make the governing committee take notice of the president's voice.

The writer presumes that the all-female system of education would boost the morales of the students. However the writer fails to explain his statements. Coeducational studies could bring in broader thinking and exchange of values among the students. The writer makes a statement about the system that the college has not experienced so far and hence is being presumptuous.

Finally, the writer does not intend to disclose the implementation of his ideas to the new scheme. The writer fails to address the situation faced by the currently studying females in the college, whether the system would be applicable only to the new recruits or will be introduced to existing classes. The position of the students thus hangs in peril.

The writer, though intends to convince the committee to revoke its plans of implementing the coeducational scheme, fails to address certain issues that seem dubious. Hence, only if the author clarifies the aforesaid arguments, does he make himself cogent