终于可以凑出近500字了..可喜可贺

 

 

TOPIC: ARGUMENT186 - The following is a recommendation from the director of personnel to the president of Professional Printing Company.

 

"In a recent telephone survey of automobile factory workers, older employees were less likely to report that having a supervisor present increases their productivity. Among workers aged 18 to 29, 27 percent said that they are more productive in the presence of their immediate supervisor, compared to 12 percent for those aged 30 or over, and only 8 percent for those aged 50 or over. Clearly, if our printing company hires mainly older employees, we will increase productivity and save money because of the reduced need for supervisors."

WORDS: 473          TIME: 0:25:39          DATE: 2009-2-4

 

In this argument, the arguer concludes that if printing company hires mainly older employees, the company will increase productivity and save money because of the reduced need for supervisors. To support the conclusion, the arguer point out that due to a recent telephone survey of automobile factory workers, older employees were less likely to report that having a supervisor present increases their productivity. In addition, the arguer reasons that the more the age, the less the percent said that they are more productive in the presence of their immediate supervisor. This argument suffers from several critical fallacies.

First of all, the argument rests on the assumption that automobile factory is similar to printing company in all respects. This assumption is weak, since although there are points of comparison between automobile factory and printing company, there is still much dissimilarity as well. It is possible that automobile factory may need the works have more skills than printing company and that is why the automobile factory needs older and skillful employees for higher productivity according to the survey. Printing company, however, may not need such high skillful workers, and it may be easy to training the newcomers. Thus, there give no reason for the printing company to hire older people.

Secondly, even if I were conceded that the automobile factory is similar to the printing company; I cannot conclude the above result. In fact, the arguer fails to indicate whether the older workers are more productive than the younger group. It has the possibility that younger workers may be more productive than the older ones when there is no supervisor. According to the above assumption, hiring younger people may increase productivity and save money.

Thirdly, the validity of the survey is also doubtful. The arguer fails to point out that how the survey was conducted, and the telephone survey, which differs from the regular ones, gives less reliability. Another problem that undermines the survey is that the reliability of the study rests on its statistical integrity.  The argument fails to indicate what the portion of the workers surveyed actually responded; the smaller this portion the less reliable the results. Nor does the argument indicate how many people were surveyed. Again, the smaller the sample the less reliable the results. In addition, the argument fails to indicate how many people in each age had taken part in the survey.

Finally, the arguer gives no interrelated data to show that if a supervisor present the productivity of workers is actually increase. Because the argument offers no evidence that would rule out these interpretation, the results of the survey are insufficient to support the conclusion.

In summary, the conclusion reached in this argument is invalid and misleading. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer would have to provide more evidence and interrelated data due to the above.