Argument 148

The following appeared in the editorial section of Monroetown's local newspaper. "Mayor Brown was recently re-elected by a clear majority of 52 percent of Monroetown's voters. Her re-election, however, does not show that most people in our town favored Mayor Brown's proposal for tax reduction over that of her opponent, Mr. Greene, who proposed raising taxes to improve education. It has been shown that voters nationwide tend to re-elect people already in office, regardless of candidates' proposals. In fact, a local survey after the election showed most people in Monroetown disagreed with Mayor Brown's proposal. Clearly most people in Monroetown favor improving education and therefore approve of Mr. Greene's proposal despite the fact that they did not vote for him."

学生原稿

In this argument, the author asserts that people in Monroetown do not favor Mayor Brown's proposal for tax reduction over that of her opponent, Mr. Greene, who proposed raising taxes to improve education, even though people do not vote for Mr. Greene. To support his standpoint, he says that people national wide tend to re-elect people already in office, regardless of their proposals. Also, he cites a local survey that most people disagreed with Mayor Brown’s proposal. His claim seems reasonable at first glance, however, close scrutiny reveals that it is unpersuasive.

To begin with, although people national wide tend to re-elect people already in office, regardless of their proposals, that does mean that the situation in Monroetown is the same. The author assumes that people in Monroetown are typical of the nation’s electorate in general. But he fails to offer substantiation to prove this assumption. It is entirely possible that people in Monroetown think over candidate’s proposals before they vote. And they vote for Mayor Brown because they favor his proposals. If so, the author cannot substantiate his conclusion according to the nationwide trend.

Moreover, he shows no sufficient evidence that the local survey on which the argument depends is persuasive. First, most is a vague concept, and he should have to tell that the percentage of people involved in this study disagree with Mayor Brown’s proposals. If this survey only involves several dozen people or even fewer, his conclusion is unpersuasive. Second, he also should show how the sample is selected. If they are all from the 42 percent people who do not vote for Mayor Brown, it is natural that they disagree with Mayor Brown. Without sufficient information about this local survey, he does not prove that it is statistically reliable in number and is representative of the population. Therefore, his conclusion is groundless.

In addition, nothing evinces that people who disagree with Mayor Brown will invariably agree with Mr. Green. Besides, people who favor improving education do not necessary want to pay more taxes, since raising taxes is not the only way to improve education. Consequently they do not favor Mr. Green. Mayor Brown may not only can reduce taxes, but improve education as well. Failing to examine other alternative reasons, he draws a hasty conclusion.

In sum, this argument is unsound in several respects. To strength the author’s standpoint, he should have to substantiate (1) the people in Monoretown are typical of the nation’s electorate in general, (2) the local survey is statistically reliable in number and is representative of the population, (3) all other alternative reasons are ruled out. Lacking such crucial information, I definitely disagree with the author.

嘉文博译修改稿

In this argument, the author asserts that people in Monroetown do not favor Mayor Brown's proposal for tax reduction over that of her opponent, Mr. Greene, who proposed raising taxes to improve education, even though people did not vote for Mr. Greene. To support his or her standpoint, the author says that people nationwide tend to re-elect people already in office, regardless of their proposals. Also, he cites a local survey that most people disagreed with Mayor Brown’s proposal. His claim seems reasonable at first glance, however, close scrutiny reveals that it is unpersuasive. To begin with, although people nationwide tend to re-elect people already in office, regardless of their proposals, that does mean that the situation in Monroetown is the same. The author assumes that people in Monroetown are typical of the nation’s electorate in general. But he fails to offer substantiation to prove this assumption. It is entirely possible that people in Monroetown strongly consider the candidate’s proposals before they vote, and that they voted for Mayor Brown because they favor her proposals. If so, the author cannot substantiate his conclusion by citing the nationwide trend.

Moreover, he shows no sufficient evidence that the local survey on which the argument depends is persuasive. First, “most people” is a vague concept, and he or she should have given the percentage of people that were involved in this study that disagree with Mayor Brown’s proposals. If this survey only involves several dozen people or even fewer, his conclusion is unpersuasive because the survey is based a non-representative sample. Second, he also should show how the sample was selected. If the sample was selected from the 42 percent of the people who did not vote for Mayor Brown, it is a natural result that they disagree with Mayor Brown. Without sufficient information about this local survey, he does not prove that it is statistically reliable in number and is representative of the population. Therefore, his conclusion is groundless.

In addition, there is no evidence that people who disagree with Mayor Brown will invariably agree with Mr. Greene. Additionally,, people who favor improving education do not necessary want to pay more taxes, since raising taxes is not the only way to improve education. It does not follow then that they necessarily approve of Mr. Greene’s proposal.. Mayor Brown may be able to not only reduce taxes, but improve education as well. By failing to examine alternative reasons, he draws a hasty and possibly incorrect conclusion.

In summary, this argument is unsound in several respects. To strength the author’s standpoint, he should have to substantiate (1) that the people in Monoretown are typical of the nation’s electorate in general, (2) that the local survey is statistically reliable in number and is representative of the population, and (3) that all other alternative reasons have been ruled out. Lacking such crucial information, I cannot agree with the author’s conclusion.

钱老师点评修改稿

Paragraph 1: A very well written summary of the argument with only two wording mistakes. The only other thing is that you don’t know whether this author is male or female, so you should probably use “him or her” and “his or her” to avoid offending whoever is marking your essay, particularly if the marker is a female. It is much more common in Western societies for women to be offended if someone only refers to the male gender if it is not known.“Did” should have been used rather than “do” to indicate the past tense rather than the present tense.The proper word to use is “nationwide” rather than “national wide” to indicate “throughout the country.”

Paragraph 2: Again well written, but a major mistake in referring to Mayor Brown as a male - it shows that you did not carefully read the argument. (Her re-election…….) “Strongly consider” is better than “think over” which is somewhat informal. In academic writing, a sentence should never be started with “And”. The last sentence of paragraph 2 is incorrect in that the way it is written says that the author’s is substantiating his conclusion as part of the nationwide trend, rather than correctly saying that the nationwide trend is used to support his argument.

Paragraph 3: When discussing the idea that the word “most” is a vague concept, it needs to be in quotation marks to make it clear that the word itself is being discussed.Otherwise the word seems to just be part of the sentence, which makes it very confusing to read.Adding the word “people” makes it even clearer what you are talking about.One problem with your logic here: what if Monroetown is very small, maybe with 100 people or fewer? In that case, several dozen people or even fewer would be a highly representative sample, although that was an excellent point that you made about choosing the sample and whether the overall sample was representative.

Paragraph 4: “Nothing evinces” just doesn’t work here.“Besides” as used here is informal writing, it is better to say “additionally”, “furthermore”, “moreover”, etc.“Consequently they do not favor Mr. Greene” is an incorrect statement – the subject being discussed is actually Mr. Greene’s proposal – they may very well favor Mr. Greene himself.Adding “and possibly incorrect” to the last sentence makes it clear that you understand that although this argument is not persuasive, it may still be correct.

Paragraph 5: This does a good job of summarizing your argument but as noted in the previous paragraph’s commentary, this argument could possibly be correct.Rather than saying that you definitely disagree, it is better to say that as the argument has been presented, you cannot agree with its conclusion because the evidence presented is not persuasive.

Overall, I found this essay to be mostly well written and the flaws that were pointed out in the argument were valid.