ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared as part of a campaign statement for Velazquez, who is seeking election as alderman in the town of Barchester:
"Under Police Commissioner Draco, the city of Spartanburg began jailing people for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting, and spraying graffiti. Criminals in Spartanburg must have understood that lawlessness would no longer be tolerated, because the following year Spartanburg saw a 20% drop in violent crimes such as homicide. Our town should learn from Commissioner Draco's success, and begin a large-scale crackdown on petty crime."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
MY RESPONSE:
The author's argument states that his town should learn from Commissioner Draco's success on lowering the crimes such a homicide by 20 percent.example of Draco . Though his claim may well have a merit , the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questions and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his argument as valid.
The primary issue is that we do not know the difference in the crime level of Barchester city and Spartanburg city. Is the Barchester city more prone to crimes such as theft, murders, etc or it has already well sufficient low crime rate. The Barchester city may be more developed and has urban population than Spartanburg city. Hence, we could assume that instead of petty crimes it could have more sort of different crimes such as cyber crimes, insider trading , terrorist activities. Without convincing answers to the above questions, one is left with the conclusion that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
The secondary issue is that the author claims that jailing people in city Spartanburg for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting and spraying graffiti the violent crimes has reduced. We fail to understand the correlation between these two objectives which the author intends us to understand. There may be a set of gangs or psychopaths who have shifted to other neighboring city for some reason which the author has obviously failed to explain . Hence, the violent crimes has reduced for some time being.
While the author has several key issues in his arguments' premises and assumptions, that is not to say the argument is without base.He could have presented some more clarifications in his argument. He could have stated that Police commissioner Draco has bought some stringent rules for drug dealers, robbers, gangs and psychopaths and serial killers. This had been the reason for the decrease in rate of violent crimes. The author could have stated that he intends to bring the same level of stringent actions in Barchester city to eradicate the prevalent violent crimes from the city. Since, there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present , with some research and clarification , he could improve his argument significantly.
In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantial assumptions that render his conclusion as invalid.There should have been more supported data for the crime level and its effects in Barchester city and Spartanburg city .If the author truly hopes to change his reader's mind on the issue , he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the laws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evident support.Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument is likely to convince few people.
The following appeared as part of a campaign statement for Velazquez, who is seeking election as alderman in the town of Barchester:
"Under Police Commissioner Draco, the city of Spartanburg began jailing people for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting, and spraying graffiti. Criminals in Spartanburg must have understood that lawlessness would no longer be tolerated, because the following year Spartanburg saw a 20% drop in violent crimes such as homicide. Our town should learn from Commissioner Draco's success, and begin a large-scale crackdown on petty crime."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
MY RESPONSE:
The author's argument states that his town should learn from Commissioner Draco's success on lowering the crimes such a homicide by 20 percent.example of Draco . Though his claim may well have a merit , the author presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questions and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his argument as valid.
The primary issue is that we do not know the difference in the crime level of Barchester city and Spartanburg city. Is the Barchester city more prone to crimes such as theft, murders, etc or it has already well sufficient low crime rate. The Barchester city may be more developed and has urban population than Spartanburg city. Hence, we could assume that instead of petty crimes it could have more sort of different crimes such as cyber crimes, insider trading , terrorist activities. Without convincing answers to the above questions, one is left with the conclusion that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
The secondary issue is that the author claims that jailing people in city Spartanburg for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting and spraying graffiti the violent crimes has reduced. We fail to understand the correlation between these two objectives which the author intends us to understand. There may be a set of gangs or psychopaths who have shifted to other neighboring city for some reason which the author has obviously failed to explain . Hence, the violent crimes has reduced for some time being.
While the author has several key issues in his arguments' premises and assumptions, that is not to say the argument is without base.He could have presented some more clarifications in his argument. He could have stated that Police commissioner Draco has bought some stringent rules for drug dealers, robbers, gangs and psychopaths and serial killers. This had been the reason for the decrease in rate of violent crimes. The author could have stated that he intends to bring the same level of stringent actions in Barchester city to eradicate the prevalent violent crimes from the city. Since, there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present , with some research and clarification , he could improve his argument significantly.
In sum, the author's illogical argument is based on unsupported premises and unsubstantial assumptions that render his conclusion as invalid.There should have been more supported data for the crime level and its effects in Barchester city and Spartanburg city .If the author truly hopes to change his reader's mind on the issue , he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the laws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evident support.Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument is likely to convince few people.
