AWA evaluation for kudos :)

Question

What do you guys think?

The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods:
 “Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its 25th birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits.”
 
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion

The argument provided claims that the costs of a company named Olympic Foods will be minimized due to its high level of experience. Also, the author concludes that the company will be able to maximize its profits on basis of the reduction of costs. This argument is flawed in several ways and fails to consider several key aspects, on the basis of which the argument could be evaluated. The conclusion stated at the beginning relies on assumptions which there is no clear evidence for.

First, the author states that over a certain period of time, it is not exactly described how that periods will last or whether it will ever stop, organizations, in general will increase efficiency based on a surge of experience. But, the argument fails to consider specific evidence, for example in form of data, to support this statement. In order to strengthen the argument, the author includes an example which is clearly out of scope. The argument tries to take into account the process the film industry faced and tries to relate that to the processing of the food industry.

Second, the argument, by explaining the process of colored movies, does not give any clue whether the described trend, mentioned in the passage, is going to be continued. Furthermore, the author includes data, which does not provide sufficient information on the development in general by simply considering the range of prices over a period of 14 years.

Last, the author relates the information stated beforehand and draws a conclusion on the process if the company Olympic Foods. To his mind, due to the fact that the company is about to celebrate its 25th birthday, it has an advantage of experience. This will provide the company with the sufficient ability to reduce costs and consequently improve ist profits. Once again, one is left with not relevant data. In this context, it is not necessarily true that the reduction of cost results in an improvement of profits.

To conclude, the argument has several flaws and is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantial evidence. It would be strengthened if the authors had mentioned all of the relevant facts described above. In order to fully assess the merits of the situation, one needs to have full knowledge of all relevant facts. A comparison to the process of other companies in the food sector would be cruel to evaluate the argument.

varunjoshi31 · Answer

Dear  JannikHeine ,

You have used the Chinesed burned approach to write your AWA.

However, the overall length of the AWA could have been longer with additional points.

For example, you mention the Film industry example is out of scope. You could have further detailed it why you feel the same.

Also, I could spot few grammatical mistakes in your AWA such as :

1. The conclusion stated at the beginning relies on assumptions "which there is no clear evidence for" should be worded as "for which there is no clear evidence"

2. First, the author states that over a certain period of time, it is not exactly described how that periods will last or whether it will ever stop, organizations, in general will increase efficiency based on a surge of experience -> This sentence is too long and wordy. This could be re worded as "First the author states that over time, the cost of processing goes down without mentioning the exact time period when the phenomenon starts"

3. Second, the argument, by explaining the process of colored movies, does not give any clue whether the described trend, mentioned in the passage, "is going to be continued". -> Wrong verb tense usage... it should be "is going to continue"

Overall I feel the length of the AWA was short with several grammatical mistakes.

Would rate the AWA at 3.5 to 4.

Regards,
Varun

JannikHeine · Answer

Thanks for the response! So lengthen the essay and take more time at the end to correct it?
 varunjoshi31

varunjoshi31 · Answer

Thats correct,

Since your AWA will be first rated by a software and will then be matched by an individual.

Hence the length of the AWA and grammar is important.

Schen18 · Answer

The argument claims that Olympics foods is a company that is expected to grow because the costs of processing have gone down in parallel industries, such as the color film industry, and the experience that company has gathered through its first 25 years. Hence, Olympic foods is expected to grow by minimizing cost and thus maximizing profits. Stated in this way, this argument manipulates facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. The conclusion of this argument relies a lot of unstated assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.

First, this argument uses the color film industry as a standard of comparison for the food processing industry. This is used to support the argument that costs have decreased in the long run as evident by the processing of color film. This type of comparisons appears to be extreme as the argument does not state any evidence of similarities between these two different industries. As a result, it could very well be that the reason for a decrease in color processing film is the decrease in the cost of films. Since the food processing industry may not rely heavily on the costs of films, it is extreme to claim that the food processing industry will experience the same decrease in costs as the color film industry.

Secondly, the argument relies on the fact the cost of processing decreases as employees learn how to do things better and more efficiently over time. However, in the real world, this linear and simple relationship may not exist. For example, as new technology emerges that that may decrease the cost of processing, we still have to consider a learning period for employees to get accustomed to new methods. As a result, an employee may have to learn new techniques which may decrease the efficiency of the company as a whole. Another example where the simple relationship between the cost of processing and employee efficiency that may not exist is when a company has to re-hire new employees. Again, these new employees has to go through a training phase which may decrease the efficiency of the company. Thus, the cost of processing decreasing over time simply because of employees getting proficient in methods, may not necessarily hold true.

Finally, the argument claims that minimizing costs will lead to maximizing profits. This a conditional statement that will only hold true if costs is the only factor involved with profitability. However, it appears that there are other factors that are involved with profitability such as the marketing and management of the company. For example, Apple is a company that has much higher costs that Xiaomi. However, it appears that despite high costs for Apple, their marketing scheme is much better thought out in comparison to Xiaomi’s. As a result, they have a much larger consumer base which allows them to be profitable despite expending more towards costs. If the argument had provided evidence that costs play a significant role in determining their profitability, then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if there is evidence presented to support their assumptions. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.

AWA evaluation for kudos :)

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