AWA Analysis
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05 Feb 2019, 02:18
The following appeared in a newspaper editorial during the holiday shopping season:
"Americans spend far too much of their time buying and consuming non-essential goods. Studies show that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. As such, it is no secret why America is losing its competitive edge relative to other countries. Instead of spending their time productively, Americans are wasting time through frivolous consumption. In order to counteract this trend, Americans should spend more time focused on personal and communal development--by, for example, pursuing educational advancement or participating in volunteer opportunities."
Discuss how logically persuasive you find the above argument. In presenting your point of view, analyze the sort of reasoning used and supporting evidence. In addition, state what further evidence, if any, would make the argument more sound and convincing or would make you better able to evaluate its conclusion
Please rate my AWA:-
The argument is partially correct, if what it assumes is true. However, there are a few questions that can put the argument in doubt or in fact even weaken the same.
1. What if Americans do invest majority of the leisure time in productive activities, will they achieve the competitive edge over other countries? We cannot say so, Since we don't have any idea about the other countries activities. The other countries may be advancing towards 100 percent literacy for all its citizens or free medical, thus leading to more intelligent & healthy citizens, contributing more or The other country may be advancing towards electricity generated through nuclear sources. In these instances, no matter how much time the Americans contribute, they will not be able to gain a competitive advantage.
2. Secondly, the argument only takes into account a portion of the leisure time, while it does not mention anything about how an average American spends his/her time. It may be possible that,Americans spend their day more efficiently & effictively than their counterparts in other countries, it is only that they choose to spend their Leisure time shopping & eating, in such a scenario, if the other country still has a competitive advantage over America, then investing more time will not solve the issue at hand. We can then conclude that there is some other factor at play.
To strengthen the argument, in order to make it convincing, the author should have took into consideration:-
1. In what fields is America behind their counterparts? and how would activities like educational advancement & volunteering, help them gain a competitive advantage? The answer to these questions would have provided us with a concrete foundation to base our conclusion on.
2. Secondly, The narrow study of only the leisure time of an Average American can be somewhat misleading, since we do not know if it consists of the majority of the total time or not. It would be wrong to assume that the Average American is equally efficient to other people throughout the day, While the latter uses their time more efficiently than the former. We have no data to support this fact, the other countries may be equally wasting their time on non productive activites or may be even more than the Americans.
If the argument had provided the information on the points discussed above, it would have been more sound, logically convincing & definitely would have persuaded us to the conclusion that if Americans spend their Leisure time in productive activities, they can gain back their competitive advantage over other countries.