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AA 9/13/2006 10:40PM AA5: The announcement of The Mercury suggests reducing the newspaper’s price in response to that the newspaper’s circulation has declined by 10,000 since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago. It also predicts that the increased circulation will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper. The announcement is not convincing because of the following flaws. Firstly, the announcement fails to demonstrate compelling evidence to support the causal connection between the competing newspaper and the declination. It simply attributes the lower-priced competing newspaper to the declining of The Mercury without ruling out other possible factors that may have played more important roles. Therefore, the lacking of such evidence makes the recommended action groundless. Secondly, the announcement does not conduct enough analysis about the outcome of reducing price. Even if the declining of circulation is related to the competing lower-priced newspaper, price is not necessarily the main reason. Other reasons, namely content and print quality, may affect reader’s preference more than price does. Therefore, reducing price is very unlikely to produce the expected outcome. Lastly, the announcement casually assumes that the increased circulation will attract more business to buy advertising space in the paper. However, this assumption fails to realize the trend of business advertising, and faulty implies that business determines where to buy advertising space depending on the number of circulation. In sum, the announcement has three major flaws in the recommendations. It would be very helpful in evaluating the recommendations if it is presented with more thorough analysis about the relationship between the competing newspaper and the declining of circulations, the power of price in determining reader’s preference, and the likeliness of businesses’ buying advertising on a newspaper with greater circulations. 9/20/06 10:28AM 124. The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Carlo’s Clothing to the staff. “Since Disc Depot, the music store on the next block, began a new radio advertising campaign last year, its business has grown dramatically, as evidenced by the large increase in foot traffic into the store. While the Disc Depot’s owners have apparently become wealthy enough to retire, profits at Carlo’s Clothing have remained stagnant for the past three years. In order to boost our sales and profits, we should therefore switch from newspaper advertising to frequent radio advertisements like those for Disc Depot.” The owner of Carlo’s Clothing suggests switching its advertisement strategy from newspaper advertising to radio advertisements, and the basis for his suggestion is that the music store Disc Depot on the next block, since its new radio advertising campaign started last year, has had a large increase in number of people who visited the music store. At first glance, the suggestion appears to somewhat convincing, but a thorough review of his basis reveals that the argument has several critical flaws. First, the argument commits a fallacy of causal oversimplification. The fact that an increase of foot traffic into the store occurred after the store’s new advertising strategy does not necessarily prove that the increase is caused by the new advertising campaign. For example, the store expanded its category that now includes more types of music that were never sold in the store before. Therefore, the causal relationship between the two events is groundless unless other possible explanations have been considered and ruled out. Second, the owner takes for granted that increased number of visitors to a store always leads to an increase of the store’s business. Third, the argument rests on the assumption that a certain advertising strategy has the same level of effect to the business of a clothing store than to the business of a music store. In conclusion, the reasoning does not constitute a logical argument in favor of the recommendation. To strengthen the argument and ensure that the switch of advertising strategy can produce the desired business growth, the author would have to provide evidences to prove that … (the music store does gain business growth through the newly introduced radio advertisement campaign and that radio advertisement is likely to produce the same level of benefit to clothing stores as to music stores.)
(To better assess the argument, we need additional detailed information about...so that we can establish the conclusion whether....)
9/21/06 11:46AM 10. The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper. “This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.” In this argument, the author concludes that the state legislature does not need to heed the appeals of the protesting students who traveled last winter to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts. The arguer cites as evidence that the number of protesting students is far less than the total number of students. At the first glance, the argument appears to be somewhat appealing. However, a through examination reveals that instead, the argument is unconvincing for several critical flaws as discussed below. The arguer commits a fallacious assumption that students who did not protest are either not interested in or against the proposed funding cut for college education. In the first place, the author failed to demonstrate whether all students were aware of the proposed cuts. If only a small number of students knew the proposal, the 200 students may have already represented a great portion of them. In addition, since the protest occurred during winter season, many students could have already planned for the winter holiday, and they may have just been unable to attend the protest even if they want to. Finally, protesting is not the only way to object a proposal, other students who did not join the protesting may have taken other actions, such as seeking support from federal government or collecting signatures from students who didn’t join the protesting but opposed the proposal. In summary, the argument is not well reasoned and therefore misleading. To better strengthen this argument, the arguer would have to present more concrete information about the opinions of the students who did not protest and reevaluate the percentage of objection. In addition, the arguer should provide more convincing evidence that the possible consequence is acceptable by the government and the public if the state legislature doesn’t respond the appeals. | 
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发表于 2006-10-8 12:44:00
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