The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a company that builds shopping malls around the coutry. "The surface of a section of Route 101, paved just two years ago by Good Intentions Roadways, is now badly cracked with a number of dangero

By making a comparison between the bad institution of section of Route 101, which was paved two years ago by Good Intentions Roadways, with the good condition of section of Route 40, which is paved four years ago by Appian Roadways, the author argue that their company ought to hire Appian Roadway to pave the access roads for their new shopping malls. While it may be true that Appian Roadways can finish the task better than Good Intentions Roadways, the argument is rife with questions and assumptions, and thus, it is not strong enough to demonstrate the recommendation of the author.

The comparison between Good Intentions Roadways and Appian Roadways is not reliable. The condition of the roads, which was paved by them is a strong evidence for their capability. However, their capability or attitude is not the only reason of the institution roads. These two different road are located in different areas. If the Route 101 have to face the bad climate, which is not proper to pave roads, or the busy traffic, which lead to the lack of rest and protest, Good Intentions Roadways should not response for the bad condition. The surface of a section of Route 40 may contain a better institution paving by Good Intentions Roadways.

It is a good news for both of our company and Appian Roadways that they bought some new machines and hired a new quality-control manager. There is no doubt that Appian Roadways will improve their capability and make more better road. But the behavior of hiring new quality-control manager decrease my confidence for them. Why, I wonder, they spend their money in hiring quality-control manager instead of more engineerings or designers. If there is not quality problem--which I take leave to doubt--they needn't pay for quality-control manager, meanwhile, they will get more business for their good reputation, and face the institution of lacking workers.

Even assuming that the paving road capability of Appian Roadways is better than Good Intentions Roadways, it is not easy to say they can do the same good job on access roads for all our new shopping malls. Although, access roads and highway roads are similar in some aspects, there are so many differences between them. A company, who can finish the job of highway road perfectly, may fail when the do the job from shopping mall. Meanwhile, the function of shopping mall access road is different with the function of highway.The new state-of-the-art paving machinery and may bu useless on the work of shopping mall access road. The quality-control manager may give the wrong guides.

While now it may be clear that it is rife with holes and assumptions in this argument, and it is not strong enough to say Appian Roadways is a good choice for us to pave our shopping mall access road. We need more strong evidence and representative survey to prove that Appian Roadways is a better choice for us than Good Intentions Roadways .