This will be my GRE® term paper

[Jayashree]

I just wrote a response to an argument. Kindly go thru this and give me your feedback. I have my exam after 2 weeks. So, i wanted to know where I stand now so that I still get some chance of improvement.

"Walnut Grove’s town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2000 to $2500 a month, whereas ABC’s fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ – which, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks, has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional services: 80 percent of respondents to the last year’s town survey agreed that they were ‘satisfied’ with EZ’s performance.”
The author of this letter asserts that Walnut Grove’s town council must continue using EZ Disposal for trash collection services in Walnut Grove that has served the place for the past ten years in spite of the hike in their rates, and not to shift to ABC Waste. Though it is clear about what the author is trying to convey but the argument seems week due to the presence of a number of flaws and lack of enough explanations.

The argument seems particularly week in the last sentence where the author has given the opinion of 80 percent of respondents as evidence. First of all, there is no mention about the number of people living in the locality, how many of them had been surveyed and how many of these had actually responded to the survey. For instance, if there were 5000 residential people out of which 4500 were surveyed and 4000 responded to the survey, then we can assume that 3200 (which is 64% of the people residing there) felt satisfied with the current service of EZ. However, if the figures were like this: out of 5000 people, 2000 had been surveyed and 1000 actually responded, then its just 800 (which is just 16% of the people residing there) who had such an opinion. So, this is one of the clear flaws in the note.

Secondly, the author is not clear about what he means by ‘exceptional’ service. He hasn’t mentioned any fact that would explain how EZ was exceptional in providing its services. This seems to be more as his personal opinion than the opinion of the entire locality. Moreover, since it is not clear about what options were provided in the survey, we cannot conclude by qualifying it as exceptional. For instance, if the optional were ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Poor’ and ‘Very Poor’, and the majority responded to ‘Satisfactory’ then the argument seems valid. If, however, the options were ‘Excellent’, ‘Very Good’, ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Bad’, then the author’s proposal seems specious.

Third, the author seems to have assumed that EZ Disposal has ordered additional trucks to augment the already 20 existing trucks. It is quite possible that some of the trucks have gone repaired and additional trucks would only serve as a replacement, then this fact doesn’t serve any purpose.

And finally, the author also makes an assumption that ABC Waste would not agree to collect trash twice a week at a lower price on negotiation and that the quality if service of ABC is either same or less than that of EZ. If ABC provides better quality of service and agrees to collect trash twice a week on the negotiated rate, then there is no reason why they should not go for ABC.

In a nutshell, the argument contains number flaws such as the ones mentioned above due to lack of proper and adequate evidences to back the author’s proposal. More of figures and reasons are required to cogently convey his proposal.

My score please!!!!
Thankyou so much for your patient reading!!! :lol:

Jayashree

[Jackiboa]

This is really quite interesting and informative post, and very helpful as far as term paper is concern but i think my suggestion will not required by you now because its too late ..