Please rate my first argument essay! (Timed)

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Please rate my essay. All suggestions are welcome.

The following appeared in a newspaper editorial.
"As violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in our cities. To combat this problem we must establish a board to censor certain movies, or we must limit admission to persons over 21 years of age. Apparently our legislators are not concerned about this issue since a bill calling for such actions recently failed to receive a majority vote."


In this argument, the author concludes that the legislators are not concerned about the increase of crime rates as violence in movies increases. The premise of the argument is that to tackle the problem of increasing violence, we must establish a board to censor certain movies and must limit admissions to persons over 21 years of age, but the bill calling for such actions failed to receive the majority vote. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion rests on assumptions. for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is fraught with several flaws.

First, the author erroneously assumes that violence in movies is the cause of increase crime rate in the cities. Although increases in violence in movies and increases in crime rates can be statistically correlated, the author has not cited any evidence to show that these two increases have causal relationship. There may be many other factors which caused the increase in crime rate. For example, the laws might have changed and might have become more lenient towards criminals because of which crime rates increased as people feared the law less than before. The argument could be much clearer if the author considered all other factors that could cause increased crime rate and rule them out before reaching to the conclusion.

Second, even if violence in movies were the sole cause of increased crime rates, limiting admission to persons over 21 years of age might not be the solution. It is just as likely that people over 21 years of age will commit crime. The argument provides us with no supporting statement that no person above 21 years of age is likely to commit crime. The argument would be a lot more convincing if the author gave evidence that person above 21 years of age will not commit crime.

Finally, even if all the previous assumptions were warranted, is it not possible that the legislators who did not vote for the bill thought that passing the bill would not impact the crime rate in the city? If so, one cannot say that the legislators are unconcerned about the increase in crime rate in the city. Without much information, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking than substantive evidence. The conclusion has no legs to stand on.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all relevant factors. In order to assess the merits of a situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. Without all the information, the claim remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.
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by throughmba » Wed Oct 19, 2011 9:35 pm
The conclusion rests on assumptions. for which there is no clear evidence.
Punctuation error
Although increases in violence in movies and increases in crime rates can be statistically correlated
increase in
For example, the laws might have changed and might have become more lenient towards criminals because of which crime rates increased as people feared the law less than before.
This reason/example seems hard to swallow

The second, third and last paragraphs are very well drafted.

This is a 6 for me anyways.

Keep it up.
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by ilovemgmat » Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:27 am
Thank you very much for your feedback.
"Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude." ~Maurice Baring
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by bharatt » Sat May 24, 2014 11:55 am
Hello,

I took a crack at this essay as well. Can someone review this and rate it for me?

Thanks !

========

The argument states that setup of boards to strengthen censorship laws on movies with violence is not taken up seriously by legislators since such a bill was recently turned down. It also states that it is necessary to have such a board to censor movies with violence, as they are considered responsible for increasing crime rate in cities. The argument is flawed as it fails to consider the fact that it is not just absence of certain board or censorship on movies which is responsible for increasing crime rates, but there are other contributing factors to it as well.

Firstly, the argument that the legislators are not concerned about this issue, since a bill calling for censoring movies or limiting admission to movies based on age had failed to receive a majority vote, is not based on factual information. It might be true that they are not taking it up right now. However, this does not take into consideration that legislators might be trying to gather more facts before they go in and propose a bill since it was recently turned down. Also, the legislators might be looking for other alternatives, such as enforcing producers to introduce call-outs on scenes with violence in movies about them being hypothetical or theatrical, which can put it in audience' mind that any act of violence they see in movies should not be imitated in real life.

Secondly, the argument assumes presence of board to censor movies with violence or limiting admission to persons over 21 years of age will help cut down crime in cities. The argument fails to take into consideration the fact that most of the criminals might be aged 21 and above, which will fail the purpose of age censorship on movies with violence. Moreover, is it the people watching these movies who have been constantly involved in committing crime - that might be another question to ask before the author of the editorial concludes that this censorship can bring down crime rate.

Finally, author's presumption around there being a direct correlation between violence in movies and crime rates seems flawed and weak. Is violence in movies the only contributor to rising crime in cities? Answer to this question might lead into the conclusion that there are reasons beyond on screen violence which are responsible for high crime rate.

To conclude, the argument could have been stronger if the author would have taken into consideration other supporting facts and evidences such as the reason behind legislators' behavior and rationale behind their thinking and action or reason why the bill was turned down in the past and how can it be avoided in future. Furthermore, the author should consider if setting up the board is the only solution or can there be better alternatives.

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TTT

by kobeshi » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:48 pm
I too made an attempt at this essay and this is what I could manage in 30 minutes. Please review.

The argument speaks of how as violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in the cities. It certainly assumes that, of late, the number of movies that glorify violence is increasing and as a result, the criminal activities in the cities are also increasing. Implied in this assumption is another assumption that, movies that glorify violence have a great influence on the minds of its viewers. What could corroborate this assumption is to compare the statistics, i.e, by considering the reported criminal activities during a time period when no such movies were released compared to when a large proportion of the same was released. A strong positive or lack of correlation thereof could throw light into this assumption. But it could also have been that the number of reported crimes vary from time to time due to a number of factors like the political and socio-economic situations of the period. As the number of reported criminal activities vary, an unambiguous extrapolation cannot be made.

Secondly, the argument propounds that a censor board that censors only certain movies need to be established. It is unclear as to who will decide which all movies would come under this category. It might be that another board would need to be established to decide which all movies would need to be censored in the first place. In such a case, parties with vested interests would come into the picture and the movie would have to be edited in a way, that would suit a particular individuals' tastes. And naturally, what is violent for one person may not be so for another, for the tolerance for action and blood is personal and vary with demographics- be it age, gender or race.

Further, the author suggests as a solution, to limit admission to only those over 21 years of age. The age of being considered an adult, the age of consent, the legal age for drinking, driving etc vary from country to country. Such limitations have been placed on the society after painstaking research and after conducting surveys and collecting data that make compelling arguments for such reasonable restrictions to be placed on them. I'm not sure if introducing an age limit for movie viewing is an effective idea. It sounds rather extreme. It needs to be carefully studied if this would be of any help. True that, it may be the younger generation or the teenagers who are most influenced by violence. But in this age and day, when movies are just a click away on the internet, apart from reducing profits for the movie makers by reducing the movie-going audiences - of which these teenagers form a huge chunk of - it won't be that effective. Rather than a one-step ban for those who are younger than 21, better and more effective steps and strategies could be considered. Moral education that would advise one to see a movie as just a movie and not real life comes to the mind.

And as a conclusion, all my previous arguments could be some reasons as to why the bill that was introduced failed to receive a majority vote. The bill being introduced itself stands testament to the fact that the legislators are indeed concerned about the issue, contrary to the argument made by the author. As to why the bill failed - the provisions of the bill need to be studied. Maybe the legislators thought that some provisions were too strong or that they weren't effective enough? But if it was in fact only a half-hearted attempt to appease the voters, then stronger actions need to be demanded.