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."
Discuss how well reasoned ... etc.
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The argument states that 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 the accident victims and to raise revenue for West Cambria town by collecting service fees for ambulance use, West Cambria should disband their volunteer service and hire a commercial ambulance service. Stated in this way, the argument manipulates the facts and conveys the distorted view of the situation. Clearly, based on the several questionable premises and assumptions, and based solely on the evidence the author offers, we cannot accept his argument as valid.

First, the argument claims that a recent review of the West Cambria ambulance service revealed a longer average response time to accidents than was reported by a commercial ambulance squad located in East Cambria. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any ways. The primary issue with the author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premise. For instance, comparison is not equal, we do not have the details of the population, road network, traffic and congestion, service team's capacity, and accident reporting time in both the towns. The author's premises, the basis for his argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

Second, the argument readily assumes that by disbanding West Cambria's volunteer service and by hiring a commercial ambulance service will readily solve the problem. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between rise of revenue and better support for accident victims, and the improvement in the cost and exact response time. To illustrate, if current West Cambria's voluntary service is costing 100 dollar and if the commercial ambulance squad will cost 200 dollar then, clearly, replacing the existing system by new system will be a costly solution, which will not generate any revenue perhaps it will create more loss. In addition, the author makes several assumptions about the collection of service fees from users, that is, the accident victims or their families. So, accident victims will have to spend money even for getting ambulance service, which does not look ethical. Moreover, the author weakens his argument by making assumptions and failing to provide explication of the links between West Cambria's volunteer ambulance service and East Cambria's commercial ambulance squad.

While the author does have several key issues in his argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that entire argument is baseless. If author provides the objective evidence about the percentage increase in response time and revenue generation then the argument will become quite stronger. In addition, if current voluntary ambulance service could learn few good tricks from the commercial ambulance squad then the result would still be better. Given the experience that West Cambria's volunteers have about the territory, the needs of accident victims, etc; the results would be even better than what commercial ambulance squad could achieve, if replace. In other words, though there are several issues with the author's reasoning at present, with research and clarifications he could improve his argument significantly. Without convincing details about these points, one left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. If the author truly hopes to change his reader's mind on the issue, he would largely have to restructure the argument, clearly fix the flaws in his logic, provide evidentiary support, and explicate the assumptions. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely to convince few people.