The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette, a local newspaper.
"The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city's limited budget. However, at some of our recent meetings we failed to make important decisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who are not even residents of Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot fully understand the business and politics of the city. After all, only Oak City residents pay city taxes, and therefore only residents understand how that money could best be used to improve the city. We recommend, then, that the Committee for a Better Oak City vote to restrict its membership to city residents only. We predict that, without the interference of non-residents, the committee will be able to make Oak City a better place in which to live and work."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In order to made Oak City a better place for living and working the writer of the letter recommends depriving of right to vote non-residents. This conclusion is based on evidence which should be carefully questioned in order to give a comprehensive estimation of the soundness of the argument.
The first evidence which is given to us is that people who work but do not live in the City are not able to completely understand the local business and politics. However, these members of committee may have better comprehension of the business and politics. Perhaps a level of education and knowledge is the crucial characteristic which allows people to make a better consideration. For instance, a local illiterate resident cannot understand the city business better than a non-resident with MBA degree. In fact, the Oak's business exists and develops for the general rules and knowing them let people give a better more thoughtful judgement. The situation with politics is similar to one with business and thus writer's belief that the fact that a person lives in the area gives one an inescapable opportunity to understand better is fallacious.
The second evidence is that only residents who pay city taxes may give a decent suggestion about usage of this money. However, the simple act of paying taxes does not make people to understand the city's needs. To illustrate this point, we may image that a person who pays local taxes lives in other city which is situated in the other part of the polity. May we say that this person, who has not visited the town, for instance, for five years but paid taxes, may have a more profound understanding of local problems than a person who daily visits and works at Oak City but not pays taxes has worse understanding of local issues and ways of its tackling? Perhaps the answer is "no"; consequently, the writer's assumption is dubious.
Finally, the arguer claims that in order to make the town a better place, non-residents ought to be banned from voting. At the same time, local dwellers may have a narrow and parochial viewpoint on the city's situation; on the contrary, people who do not persistently live in the town may possess more catholic prospect on the ways of city's improvement. For example, a person who has spent all his life in the city may get used to dirty streets and absence of decent illumination of them during night. At the same time, a person, who has experience of living in other places, may have a better instance to compare with and thus these filthy streets will be unacceptable for him; therefore a non-resident may give an indispensable recommendation which may dramatically change the city.
In conclusion, the argument states that only local residents may understand and local business and politics; however, the originator of the letter does not manage to prove this statement and our analysis has demonstrated that evidence on which the argument is based is unwarranted.
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Comments
Hello.
Hello.
There is a problem I analyzed the structure of the argument and it seems that I should accept unquestionably the writer point of view in particular because I had found three points against which I can safely argue.
"The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city's limited budget. However, at some of our recent meetings we failed to make important decisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who are not even residents of Oak City.
1) The first argument People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot fully understand the business and politics of the city.
2) The second fact and argument After all, only Oak City residents pay city taxes, and therefore only residents understand how that money could best be used to improve the city.
3) the conclusion. We recommend, then, that the Committee for a Better Oak City vote to restrict its membership to city residents only. We predict that, without the interference of non-residents, the committee will be able to make Oak City a better place in which to live and work."
These three points seems to be coherent and logically connected with each other but the first part seems to be a mere author's tirade.
I) the first question is: When or/ and why my analysis of the structure is incorrect?
II) The second question is How I can guess that the first point should be questioned? //I assume that wording may be the key "foolish"//
III) Is my analysis of the first argument, which is located below, correct?
The author of the argument tends to neglect non-residents’ objections as “foolish”, however, these contentious points may have a dramatic impact on life of local dwellers. The motivation of non-residents may be benevolent and their objection may be reasonable. The writer might have made the argument stronger had he avoided emotional reaction and shared with us the factual information about these objections. Till we are not given this information it is imprudent to accept writer’s assertion.
Thank you. I appreciate your attention and help. With your help I will manage to acquire a decent score. Thank you.
Your three arguments are
Your three arguments are correct.
As we told, we need to accept those data or evidence as correct, but it should be something like report, study or survey. If it is a personal opinion, still we need to argue. From the words 'foolish objections', we can understand it is very emotional.
If you don't want to put one new paragraph to argue it independently, still you need to mention in other arguments that they are not 'foolish objections'.
Sentence: In order to made Oak City a better place for living and working the writer of the letter recommends depriving of right to vote non-residents.
Description: The token to is not usually followed by a verb, past participle
Suggestion: Refer to to and made
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Need to argue against this too:
However, at some of our recent meetings we failed to make important decisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who are not even residents of Oak City.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 498 350
No. of Characters: 2402 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.724 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.823 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.773 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 162 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.676 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.356 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.566 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.159 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5