The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client."Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienc

The author of the statement recommends a client to invest on an oil company called Consolidated Industries. The author predicts that the demand of using oil for heating homes of the region would increase in the following several years and this in turn would make profits for the oil businesses. There are several vital questions whose answers change the current ambiguous form of the statement to a clear one. After providing such answers the argument is able to be evaluated.

First, the author cites a weather forecast predicting that following winters will have days with the below-average temperatures. The author needs to ask definitely how much below the average the temperature will be and whether this reduction in the temperature is significant. It is probable that the temperature decreases so scantly under the average. Therefore, the usage of oil might not be drastically different than the other years. Furthermore, what is the temperature in the other seasons? With the possibility that other seasons are warm, the profits of the company may only be limited to winters while in the other 9 warm months of the region, the business might be dormant. Therefore the net profit during a year might not be considerable to encourage any investment.

Secondly, the author assumes that since many houses were built in the region recently, the demands for using oil will be increased as the population is seemingly increasing. Are the homes occupied during the winter? It is highly possible that in winter the weather becomes so cold that many of people migrate to other places instead of being in the region and using so much oil. Even if the homes are occupied, the author seriously needs to ask whether people will use other sources of energy to become warm. It is possible that town gas is going to be canalized to the town. So people might use gas. The electric heaters also might be used instead of burning oil and producing dangerous gasses.

Finally, the author needs to ask what the resume of the company is in detail that the author suggested this company instead of any other company. The resume of the company might not be good. For instance, People might prefer working with the rival companies as Consolidated Industries might have a bad reputation in adulterating the oil. With ruling out any inferior feature of the company in terms of supplying, services, and treating the customers, the client would be more confident in the investment in Consolidated Industries.

In short, as discussed, the authors’ argument is replete with ambiguous information which provokes questions. The answer to enumerated questions makes the argument clear and then it can be judged whether it is reasonable or not.
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