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kelliezhang
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 9:04 am
The following appeared in the editorial section of a West Cambria newspaper:
"A recent review of the West Cambria volunteer ambulance service revealed a longer average response time to
accidents than was reported by a commercial ambulance squad located in East Cambria. In order to provide better
patient care for accident victims and to raise revenue for our town by collecting service fees for ambulance use, we
should disband our volunteer service and hire a commercial ambulance service."
In the preceding argument, the author reaches the conclusion that the city could provide better care for accident victims and raise revenue by disbanding volunteer service and hiring a commercial ambulance service. To support his argument, the author compares volunteer service and commercial service and points out the commercial service responds quicker. Also, he assumes a new commercial service would do the same in West Cambria as the one does in East Cambria. The author's argument is invalid since the conclusion omits some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument.
To begin with, the argument rests on a gratuitous assumption that the commercial provides better service than the volunteer team.The author provides no evidence to support this assumption. The fact that the West Cambria volunteer service team responds longer time than the commercial team in East Cambria does not necessarily means commercial team service is better than volunteer team service in general, since the comparison is only between two teams. It is entirely possible that the volunteer ambulance service in West Cambria has shorter response time than some other commercial ambulance services do in other cities. Therefore, the author set the assumption on a groundless level.
In addition, even the commercial team does give better service than the volunteer team does, by disbanding volunteer service and hiring commercial team would not guarantee to generate revenue. With volunteer team, the city does not need to pay the volunteers; however, by hiring commercial team, city needs to consider the labor cost. It is highly doubtful that the service fees for ambulance use will be high enough to cover the total cost of the team, and even possible result in heavy financial burden, since the revenue only comes from rescue accident victims. In short, without weighing gains against expenses, the author's notion is premature at best.
Last but not least, the argument falsely depends on the assumption that West Cambria is analogous to East Cambria in all aspects. This assumption is problematic since it unreasonably draws that all the elements are the same between these two cities. For instance, the traffic could be the reason that the volunteer service in West Cambria responds longer time than the commercial service in East Cambria does. Therefore, even the city hires commercial service, it would not do any better because the new team could not change the fixed circumstance. Without providing sufficient evidence to this assumption, it is unsounded to conclude that a commercial service will provide better service in West Cambria.
To sum up, the conclusion of this argument is seriously undermined by the flaws identified above. If the author truly hopes his readers accept the argument, he would have to provide credible evidence about why the commercial ambulance team provides better service than the volunteer team does, and how to raise revenue by implementing this proposal. Meanwhile, the author needs to provide evidence to eliminate all the possibilities that could cause different result between these two cities. Without resolving these issues, the argument is unlikely to be convincing.
"A recent review of the West Cambria volunteer ambulance service revealed a longer average response time to
accidents than was reported by a commercial ambulance squad located in East Cambria. In order to provide better
patient care for accident victims and to raise revenue for our town by collecting service fees for ambulance use, we
should disband our volunteer service and hire a commercial ambulance service."
In the preceding argument, the author reaches the conclusion that the city could provide better care for accident victims and raise revenue by disbanding volunteer service and hiring a commercial ambulance service. To support his argument, the author compares volunteer service and commercial service and points out the commercial service responds quicker. Also, he assumes a new commercial service would do the same in West Cambria as the one does in East Cambria. The author's argument is invalid since the conclusion omits some important concerns that must be addressed to substantiate the argument.
To begin with, the argument rests on a gratuitous assumption that the commercial provides better service than the volunteer team.The author provides no evidence to support this assumption. The fact that the West Cambria volunteer service team responds longer time than the commercial team in East Cambria does not necessarily means commercial team service is better than volunteer team service in general, since the comparison is only between two teams. It is entirely possible that the volunteer ambulance service in West Cambria has shorter response time than some other commercial ambulance services do in other cities. Therefore, the author set the assumption on a groundless level.
In addition, even the commercial team does give better service than the volunteer team does, by disbanding volunteer service and hiring commercial team would not guarantee to generate revenue. With volunteer team, the city does not need to pay the volunteers; however, by hiring commercial team, city needs to consider the labor cost. It is highly doubtful that the service fees for ambulance use will be high enough to cover the total cost of the team, and even possible result in heavy financial burden, since the revenue only comes from rescue accident victims. In short, without weighing gains against expenses, the author's notion is premature at best.
Last but not least, the argument falsely depends on the assumption that West Cambria is analogous to East Cambria in all aspects. This assumption is problematic since it unreasonably draws that all the elements are the same between these two cities. For instance, the traffic could be the reason that the volunteer service in West Cambria responds longer time than the commercial service in East Cambria does. Therefore, even the city hires commercial service, it would not do any better because the new team could not change the fixed circumstance. Without providing sufficient evidence to this assumption, it is unsounded to conclude that a commercial service will provide better service in West Cambria.
To sum up, the conclusion of this argument is seriously undermined by the flaws identified above. If the author truly hopes his readers accept the argument, he would have to provide credible evidence about why the commercial ambulance team provides better service than the volunteer team does, and how to raise revenue by implementing this proposal. Meanwhile, the author needs to provide evidence to eliminate all the possibilities that could cause different result between these two cities. Without resolving these issues, the argument is unlikely to be convincing.
