Parents, if you need a summer camp for your children look no further than Federville Farms. In a recent survey, Federville Farms ranked first in both overall camper satisfaction and in food quality, and second in the variety of outdoor activities. Federville Farms has been family owned and operated for over forty years, so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your child's safety, and it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state. If you seek the best camp experience for your children, Federville Farms is the best choice you can make.

My Response:

The author describes how Federville Farms is a great choice to make for a camping experience. The author claims that parents do not have to worry about their child's safety because Federville Farms has been owned and operated by the same family for over forty years. Even more so, compared with other camps, Federville Farms employs the most Red Cross certified lifeguards. Although the author does have some merit, he fails to provide enough information to prove that his argument is correct. Most importantly, by implying that child safety is a direct result of family ownership and forty years of operation, he makes an invalid comparison.

First, the fact that the Federville Farms has been family owned and operated says nothing about how safe Federville Farms is for children. Since child safety is not a factor influenced by whether the family owns the park, this connection is completely invalid. Furthermore, it may very well be that many children got hurt in the past forty years in Federville Farms. The author does not mention anything about actual numbers that prove that the past forty years actually matter in regard to child safety. The author is therefore advised to provide additional information about how safe to children the camp is. Preferably, this could be done by mentioning numbers of incidents in the past forty years.

Second, the author mentions how Federville Farms employs the most Red Cross certified lifeguards, as if this proves how safe the camp is for children. Unfortunately, it does not. The fact that the camp has the most lifeguards might very well be a sign that the camp often encounters incidents where children get hurt, which required the camp to employ so many lifeguards. If any, this claim implies that the camp is not very safe and therefore needs more lifeguards than any other camp in the state. The author is therefore advised to adjust this information and describe why they have so many lifeguards. The information displayed lacks enough detail for a correct interpretation.

To conclude, although the author seems to have a point by implying that children are safe at Federville Farms because it has been family owned and operated for the past forty years, the author fails to provide sufficient information and statistics, and hence leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Because the author first makes the wrong connection between forty years of operation, owned by family, and child safety, the argument is invalid and needs to be reconsidered by the author. Second, because the author mentions how Federville Farms employs the most lifeguards, the author is not strengthening his argument but rather weakens it by implying that Federville Farms needs so many lifeguards because of its potential safety risks.