AA010

In this argument, the author claims that the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students from Waymarsh State College, since these students were no representative of the majority of college students in the state. Plausible at first sight, this argument is actually based on the dubious assumption that other students in the state were not concerned about their education. However, this is not necessarily the case.

First of all, the mere fact that other students either stayed on campus or left for winter break hardly suffices to demonstrate that these students cared little about their education. Although they did not participate in traveling to the state capital building to protest, they might also express their concern and discontent through other channels. For example, some students might have written letters to the state officials, some might have made speeches on the campus, still others might have set up web pages on the Internet to draw public attention. Unless the author can demonstrate that these students actually did nothing to protest against cuts in funding, it is hard to believe that they were not concerned about the issue.

Moreover, the author unfairly assumes that the 200 students from Waymarsh State College are not representative of the state's college students only because they are less significant in number. This assumption fails to rule out the possibility that the 200 students were selected by all the angry students as representatives to demonstrate the general attitude. Anyway, it is not realistic for all the 12200 students to travel to the building. Even the students who did little to protest in other ways might have authorized the 200 students to represent them by signing the petition. It is too arbitrary to assert that students who walked to the state building did not represent the majority of the students in college.

Finally, the author provides little evidence concerning the situation at other colleges of the state. Since Waymarsh State College is only one school of the state, we cannot draw the easy conclusion that the majority of the students in the state agreed with funding cutting. It is entirely possible that the author fails to mention situations in other colleges where the majority of the students showed strong opposition to the plan through various ways. To better support the conclusion, the author at least have to investigate into the overall attitudes of most students in the state by listening to students in other colleges.

To conclude, this argument is based on evidence partially interpreted, which render it unconvincing as it stands. The argument would have been thorough and convincing if it takes into consideration the possibility that other students who did not go to the protest might have also shown disagreement through other methods. Also the author would have to investigate students in other colleges of the state to make the conclusion more representative.