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please review my argument essay

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please review my argument essay

by kavithashravani » Mon Aug 08, 2011 6:25 am
The following appeared in the opinion section of a national newsmagazine:

"To reverse the deterioration of the postal service, the government should raise the price of postage stamps. This solution will no doubt prove effective, since the price increase will generate larger revenues and will also reduce the volume of mail, thereby eliminating the strain on the existing system and contributing to improved morale."

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.




Some people believe that raising the price of postal stamps might reverse the deterioration of the postal service.On the other hand others are of the opinion that simply increasing the price of the stamps will not fetch the desired results.The author has based his opinion on some assumptions and his argument is not convincing. I shall refute the former opinion and support the later view in the upcoming paragraphs.

First,the author readily assumes that the postal service is deteriorating.No evidence has been cited to prove this.In an agricultural country like India,where the majority of population is concentrated in rural areas,postal stamps play a very important role in communication.Though in cities people might not use stamps anymore but India's 70% population resides in villages and it will be wrong to assume that postal services are deteriorating.

Another flaw in the author's argument is that he assumes that increasing prices of stamps will increase the revenue.The population residing in cities as it is do not depend on stamps for communication.Price increase will not help them attract more consumers but at the same time it might lead to loss of already existing customers.The villagers who can now afford stamps might not purchase stamps if the prices are increased.

The next flaw in the argument is that author feels that increasing prices will reduce the volume of mail,and hence eliminate the strain on the existing system and contribute to improved morale.Increased prices will surely reduce the volume of mail but will in no way eliminate the strain on the existing system or contribute to improved morale.If the volume of mail is reduced significantly,that means people are opting for some other means of communication which is cheaper than postal stamps.This will result in extinction of the postal stamps in the long run.

Also the reason for the deteriorating postal service could be poor service provided to the customers,and increasing the postal stamps prices will not solve this problem.

In sum,the author's argument is seriously flawed and relies on a lot of assumptions.He needs to restructure his argument by including the aforementioned points.
The author should cite some examples which bolster his opinion in order to make his argument more convincing and persuasive.
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by sunnyjohn » Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:00 am
Some people believe that raising the price of postal stamps might reverse the deterioration of the postal service.On the other hand others are of the opinion that simply increasing the price of the stamps will not fetch the desired results.The author has based his opinion on some assumptions and his argument is not convincing. I shall refute the former opinion and support the later view in the upcoming paragraphs.

I think usage of "some people" is not correct. The argument contains author's claim and reasoning. In my humble opinion - First 2 lines of this paragraph doesn't sound good.
Please dont take me wrong, I am only trying to help you. If I have to write the first paragraph, I would write something like this -

In the preceding argument, The author claims that government can reverse the deterioration of the postal service by increasing the price of postage stamps. Though this "cause and effect" argument may well have merits, It is a poorly reasoned argument and is based on several questionable premises and assumptions. We cannot accept the argument as valid. Hence, I shall be representing my view against the argument in upcoming paragraphs.


First,the author readily assumes that the postal service is deteriorating. No evidence has been cited to prove this. In an agricultural country like India, where the majority of population is concentrated in rural areas, postal stamps play a very important role in communication. Though in cities people might not use stamps anymore but India's 70% population resides in villages and it will be wrong to assume that postal services are deteriorating.

Writing wise this looks very good.
But In my opinion, "Deteriorating service" is not an assumption. No author would be providing a solution to an assumption. Its a problem and we have to accept it as a fact.
The stimulus says that - Increase price will give more revenue and decrease the volume. This will somehow reverse the deterioration. So assumption would be - Not enough revenue and high volume are cause of deterioration.

Now you can attack on this assumption. There can be other reasons as well which can cause deterioration. For example - Poor Service, Poor infrastructure, Less number of post offices etc.

I would read your rest of essay tomorrow. Good Night. Once again Please dont take me wrong.

Next day - next two paragraph are very good. I really like the reasoning.
I believe you will easily get 5.0 in this.

Thanks,
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by sunnyjohn » Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:01 am
Hi, I also have written the same essay. Hope you help me to find few mistakes in it.

In the preceding argument, The author claims that government can reverse the deterioration of the postal service by increasing the price of postage stamps. Though this "cause and effect" argument may well have merits, It is a poorly reasoned argument and is based on several questionable premises and assumptions. We cannot accept the argument as valid. Hence, I shall be representing my view against the argument in upcoming paragraphs.

The primary issue with the author's reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. Author says increased postal stamps price will help to generate more revenue and will decrease the volume of mails. It may also possible that increased price will make people to switch to cheaper alternatives. Though this will reduce the volume of mails, it will also reduce the revenue. For example - In India majority of people who use postal services lives below the poverty line, and an increase in stamps price is most likely to make them switch to other alternatives. Thus a decrease in revenue can create more problems to postal service by putting more strain and decreased morale. Overall, we can say that the author's premises, the basis for this argument, lack any legitimate evidentiary support and render his conclusion unacceptable.

In addition, the author makes several assumptions that remain unproven. One of the primary assumption is the reason of deterioration of postal service. The author is making a direct assumption that high volume of mails and not enough revenue are the major cause of deterioration, and increased stamps price will solve the root cause of the problem. There can be serveral other reasons of problem such as few number of offices, improper service, high prices, and inproper infrastructure etc. Thus the author makes his argument vulnerable by making weak assumptions and failing to provide explication of the link between revenue and volume of mails and deterioration of postal service.

While the author does have several key issues in this argument's premises and assumptions, that is not to say that the entire agrument is without base. The author can put his argument more firmly by providing valid evidences shedding some light on how increased price will cause reverse in deterioration not decline in revenue by making people to switch to cheaper alternative. The author can also strengthen his position on argument by providing validation of his assumptions. He needs to provide information on causes of problem, which is deterioration of postal service, and then provide a clear view on how these causes will be addressed by the suggested solution. Overall, At present there are several issues with the author's reasoning, but with more reaserach and clarification, he can improve his argument significantly.

In Sum, the author's argument is bases on unsupported premises and unsubstantiated assumptions that render his conclusion invalid. He failed to provide necessary evidence and validate unstated assumptions. If the author truly hopes to chane his reader's mind on the argument, he would have to largely restructure his argument, fix the flaws in his logic, clearly explicate his assumptions, and provide evidentiary support. Without these things, his poorly reasoned argument will likely convince few people.
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by michigangradftw » Sun May 27, 2012 8:37 am
Anyone mind reviewing mine as well? Would appreciate!

The postal service has recently been in dire straits, a fact widely reported in the mainstream media. Numerous solutions have been proposed to maintain the speed of service and number of branches the current incarnation of the postal service provides. The author of this argument, for example, suggests that raising the price of postage stamps will reverse the deterioration of the postal service by generating larger revenues and reducing the volume of mail, actions which will eliminate the existing strains on the system and improve employee morale. This argument, however, is extremely poorly reasoned. It has a lack of supporting evidence and is filled with questionable premises and assumptions, which considerably weaken the overall argument.

A primary problem with the argument's reasoning is that it relies on questionable premises. The conclusion that raising the price will reverse the deterioration of the postal service relies on several sub-conclusions that operate as premises: the price increase will generate larger revenues and reduce the volume of mail, both of which will thereby eliminate strain on the existing system and improve morale. Two in particular are questionable. The third, that less mail will eliminate the strain on the existing system does not self-evidently seem true without further supporting evidence. The strain on the existing system could very well be relatively independent of the volume of mail. Some hypothesize that the postal system, unlike many other organizations, suffers from a culture of slow work and procrastination, that contribute to strain regardless of the load. The fourth premise is also questionable, that larger revenues with less mail will contribute to improved morale. It is not necessarily the case that morale could be improved by changing volume. It is in fact more likely, based on the evidence generally available, that the real cause of postal worker's low morale is their wages. Lower volume does not change the fact that their wages put them towards the bottom of the American earning spectrum. These questionable premises severely weaken the conclusion of reversing the deterioration of the postal service.

But not only are the premises questionable, the author also makes several leaps, or assumptions, that compromise the integrity of the argument. One glaring assumption is that price increases will generate larger revenues. Revenues are a product of price and quantity. Although price will increase, as the second premise of the argument itself indicates, quantity will decrease. The author fails to provide evidence that the price increase will overwhelm the quantity decrease. There is reason to believe it will be otherwise, because many people in the news media already complain about the price of the postage stamps. Another assumption the author makes is that the price increase will reduce the volume of mail. Although this is likely, this is hardly certain. There exist products for which the demand curve is upward sloping, or as price increases, quantity increases. Moreover, there are also products for which the fixes a price increase allows increases the quality of the product, in which case the demand for the product increases. That may very well be the case for this postal service. That is, if, as the author claims, the strain on the system will erode and employee morale will improve, the product of the postal service itself will likely improve through better and more timely customer experiences. As a result, quantity may go up instead of down. Were quantity to go up again, the strain may be recreated and morale may not increase, thus not stopping the deterioration of the postal service. These unwarranted assumptions compromise the whole argument.

Finally, although the author's claim may be accurate, the way s/he argues it is incredibly weak. Indeed, the author's argument may be strengthened in several ways. First and foremost the identified questionable premises could be provided supporting evidence. That is, for example, the author could provide evidence that there exists strain on the postal service due to a high volume of mail now, thus supporting the premise that reducing the quantity of mail will eliminate strains in the system. Similarly, the author could bridge the gap of the identified questionable assumptions. For instance, the author could make the claim that an increased price would decrease quantity much stronger by providing evidence from a consumer survey confirming that consumers would use the postal service less often if it were more expensive. But beyond the questionable premises and assumptions, the author could also do a stronger job of identifying the causes of the deterioration of the postal service. Simply listing off positive effects of a price increase does not constitute a compelling case to increase the price of the postal service's single product. The areas of improval, like employee morale for instance, could potentially be described as the causes of the deterioration of the postal service. Were the author to do this, and show that a price increase addresses the root causes of the deterioration, s/he would have a much stronger claim to having had argued that a price increase would reverse the deterioration of the postal service. With this changes, the author's line of reasoning may have been much more logically sound and persuasive.

This argument's reasoning was quite weak. It is filled with questionable premises, for example that lower volume would eliminate strains in the system or improve employee morale, questionable assumptions, for example that the price increase will increase revenues or decrease quantity, and unnecessarily weak argumentation, including a lack of supporting evidence where it was needed. The claim might be true with more logical, sounder reasoning. Given the importance of the postal service to freedom, commerce, and business, having a more well reasoned discussion of potential solutions would be extremely beneficial to the fate of America.
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