Argument Writing(1)
gratuitous assumption that Olympic Foods”“long experience“ has taught it how to do things better. There is, however, no guarantee that this is the ca. Nor does the author cite any evidence to support this assumption. Just as likely, Olympic Foods has learned nothing from its 25 years in the food-processing business. Lacking this assumption, the expectation of incread efficiency is entirely unfounded.
Second, it is highly doubtful that the facts drawn from the color-film processing
industry are applicable to the food processing industry. Differences between the two industries clearly outweigh the similarities, thus making the analogy highly less than valid. For example, problems of spoilage, contamination, and timely transportation all affect the food industry but are virtually abnt in the film-processing industry. Problems such as the might prent insurmountable obstacles that prevent lowering food-processing costs in the future.
As it stands the author”s argument is not compelling. To strengthen the conclusion that Olympic Foods will enjoy minimal costs and maximum profits in the future, the author would have to provide evidence that the company has learned how to do things better as a result of its 25 years of experience. Supporti
ng examples drawn from industries more similar to the food-processing industry would further substantiate the author”s view.
2. In this argument the author concludes that the Apogee Company should do
down field offices and conduct all its operations from a single, centralized location
becau the company had been more profitable in the past when all its operations were in one location. For a couple of reasons, this argument is not very convincing.
First, the author assumes that centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs and streamlining supervision of employees. This assumption is never supported with any data or projections. Moreover, the assumption fails to take into account cost increas and inefficiency that could result from centralization. For instance, company reprentatives would have
to travel to do business in areas formerly rved by a field office, creating travel costs and loss of critical time. In short, this assumption must be supported with a thorough cost-benefit analysis of centralization versus other possible cost-cutting and/or profit-enhancing strategies.
Second, the only reason offered by the author is the claim that Apogee was more profitable when it h
ad operated from a single, centralized location. But is centralization the only difference relevant to greater past profitability? It is entirely possible that management has become lax regarding any number of factors that can affect the bottom line such as inferior products, careless product pricing, inefficient production, poor employee expen account monitoring, ineffective advertising, sloppy buying policies and other wasteful spending. Unless the author can rule out other factors relevant to diminishing profits, this argument commits the fallacy of assuming that just becau one event (decreasing profits) follows another (decentralization), the cond event has been caud by the first.
In conclusion, this is a weak argument. To strengthen the conclusion that Apogee should clo field offices and centralize.
This author must provide a thorough cost-benefit analysis of available alternatives and rule out factors other than decentralization that might be affecting current profits negatively.
3. In this argument the author concludes that the city should allocate some of its arts funding to public television. The conclusion is bad on two facts: (1) attendance at the city”s art muum has incread proportionally with the increas in visual-arts program viewing on public television, and (2)
public television is being threatened by vere cuts in corporate funding. White this argument is somewhat convincing, a few concerns need to be addresd.
To begin with, the argument depends on the assumption that incread exposure to the visual arts on television, mainly public television, has caud a similar increa in local art-muum attendance. However, just becau incread art-muum attendance can be statistically correlated with similar increas in television viewing of visual-arts programs, this does not necessarily mean that the incread television viewing of arts is the cau of the ri in muum attendance.
Moreover, perhaps there are other factors relevant to incread interest in the local art muum; for instance, maybe a new director had procured more interesting, exciting acquisitions and exhibits during the period when muum attendance incread, in addition, the author could be overlooking a common cau of both increas. It is possible that some larger social or cultural phenomenon is responsible for greater public interest in both television arts programming and municipal art muums.
To be fair, however, we must recognize that the author”s assumption is a special ca of a more general one that television viewing affects people”s attitudes and behavior. Common n and obs
ervation tells me that this is indeed the ca. After all, advertirs spend billions of dollars on television ad time becau they trust this assumption as well.
