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AWA essay, please rate, thank you all!
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10 Feb 2017, 14:41
Kudos if you like the essay!!
The following appeared in a magazine article on trends and lifestyles: “In general, people are not as concerned as they were a decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty cheeses. Walk into the Heart’s Delight, a store that started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960’s, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content. Next door, the owners of the Good Earth Café, an old vegetarian restaurant, are still making a modest living, but the owners of the new House of Beef across the street are millionaires.”
Discuss how well reasoned...etc.
The argument concerns the timely topic of health and diet. The author argues that people are, in general, not as concerned about regulating their intake of meat and fatty cheeses as they were a decade ago. The author provides evidence in the form of facts regarding three businesses: a store and two restaurants. The argument is deeply flawed. The evidence provided is weak and there are unrealistic assumptions that must be made to reach the argument’s conclusion from the evidence provided.
The Heart’s Delight store is used as evidence in this argument. The author writes that “the store started selling organic fruits and vegetables and whole-grain flours in the 1960’s, and you will also find a wide selection of cheeses made with high butterfat content”. This statement is weak and lacks details. It gives no information about when the cheeses were introduced by the store. If the store introduced the cheeses in the 1970s then this statement has no relevance to the argument, which is concerned with the past decade. In addition, no information is given about the quantity of cheeses sold in relation to other produce.
The author juxtaposes the Good Earth Cafe with the House of Beef and uses the living conditions of the owners of the two establishments as evidence of people’s current eating preferences. However, there are unrealistic assumptions that must be made to reach the conclusion. The author does not explicitly state that the living conditions of the owners are as a result of the popularity of their eating establishments. According to the passage, the owners of the House of Beef could be vastly wealthy, live like millionaires and still operate the House of Beef as an unpopular restaurant. The implication is that the living conditions of the owners is a direct reflection of the popularity of their respective eating establishments. While this is a reasonable assumption, it is not explicitly stated.
Furthermore, the author neglects to take into account the quality or reputation of the two establishments. If the Good Earth Cafe is poorly rated and the House of Beef is renowned, then this would account for the difference in profitability/popularity. The author requires the reader to assume that the popularity of the two eating establishments is representative of people’s daily diet. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that going out to eat is a special occasion and therefore people prefer to eat meat. This does not necessarily mean that meat features prominently in their daily diet. The author also requires the reader to assume that the eating habits evidenced by the two eating establishments are representative of people as a whole. This is not a reasonable assumption. If the area in which the two eating establishments are located is wealthy, this would presumably help to explain the higher popularity of the House of Beef (assuming that the House of Beef is more expensive than Good Earth Cafe).
To strengthen the argument, the author needs to provide facts that accurately show the eating habits of the general population on a daily basis and include evidence showing how these habits have changed over the past decade.
In its current state, the reader cannot be expected to logically arrive at the conclusion from the evidence provided.