The following appeared as part of an article in the travel section of a
newspaper.
“Over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiessa has
experienced unprecedented growth. This surge can be expected to continue in the
coming years, fueled by recent social changes: personal incomes are rising, more
leisure time is available, single-person households are more common, and people
have a greater interest in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of
publications on the subject.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
ESSAY-
The author claims that over the past decade, the restaurant industry in the country of Spiessa has experienced unprecedented growth; he also claims that this growth will continue in the coming years, citing recent social changes such as the rise in the personal income levels, the increase in leisure time, the increase of single – person households, and the rise in the interest of people towards gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject. All the factors mentioned above are relevant to the growth of the restaurant industry but there are certain reasonable assumptions that are missing in the argument.
To begin with, the first factor listed by the author for the growth in the restaurant industry is the rise in the personal incomes of people. The author assumes that the rise of the personal incomes will cause the growth of the industry and this assumption is fallacious as there is no proof that attributes the growth in personal income to the growth of the industry. It may not be necessary that a rise in the personal income levels of people would cause the growth of the restaurant industry as people might spend their income somewhere else such as on investments in properties, on expensive cars etc, therefore the amount of money that they’d spend on restaurant meals would remain constant.
In addition, another causal factor cited by the author is the increase in the leisure time of people and the rise in the single person households. These factors don’t reconcile with the growth in the restaurant industry as people might spend their leisure time in some other activities such as going to the movies, going on holidays etc. To strengthen the argument, the author needs to provide some amount of statistics that prove people of the country prefer spending their leisure time in the restaurants and people that have single households prefer going to the restaurants for having their meals.
Thirdly, another important reason suggested by the author for the continual growth of the restaurant industry is the increasing interest of people in gourmet food, as evidenced by a proliferation of publications on the subject. The proof given by the author to substantiate this reason is not very accurate as the information about the proportion of restaurants that serve gourmet food in the country is not provided. There might be a huge proportion of 70% restaurants in the country that serve gourmet food, strengthening the author’s argument. On the other hand, there might only be a handful of 10% restaurants serving gourmet food, critically weakening the author’s argument.
In conclusion, the argument is weak because of the above listed points and the vague causal relationships assumed by the author to be true. To strengthen the above argument, the author needs to provide clear statistics that prove the ill-founded assumptions made by the author in an attempt to provide a prediction that is too vague to be accepted.