First AWA - Please rate my essay and highlight areas of improvement!!!

Topic :

The following appeared as part of an article reviewing summer camps for children.

Parents, if you need a summer camp for your children look no further than Federville Farms. In a recent survey, Federville Farms ranked first in both overall camper satisfaction and in food quality, and second in the variety of outdoor activities. Federville Farms has been family owned and operated for over forty years, so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your child's safety, and it employs more Red Cross certified lifeguards than any other camp in the state. If you seek the best camp experience for your children, Federville Farms is the best choice you can make.

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.

My Essay :

The argument makes a tall claim that Federville Farms is the number one summer camp company and undoubtedly provide the best camp experience to the children. However, this claim seems to be manipulated by points which makes the parents believe without taking a holistic view of what defines a good camping experience.

Firstly, the argument fails to define what parents look in a good camping experience. Certainly a good camping experience constitutes good food, safety and variety of outdoor activities but it cannot be limited to them. Parents generally would like to have a holistic experience not limited only to the factrs mentioned and make their children learn new things which a traditional teaching environment fails to teach : experience nature , bonding with new kids from different strata of the society , imbibe team spirit and experience small happiness which we lack in a materialistic world. We are unable to conclude if Federville Farms would be able to meet all these criteria. Also, Federville Farms uses the survey to strengthen its claim, however the authenticity of the survey is a big question.

Further, the argument claims to be extremely safe and reliable since its a family owned company, been in the business since last 40 years and has more red cross life guards than any other camp in the state. But these factors are not enough to safely conclude that its safe. There have been several examples of family owned companies running adventure sports where there have been major accidental mishaps. Also, Federville Farms might have the maximum life guards, but its important to ascertain the ratio of life guard to children in the camp. There could be a scenario where they might have the maximum count but the ratio of life guards to children is very low.

To conclude, it would have been good if we could consider additional factors like how parents define the overall camping experience, market research pointers on safety to evaluate the argument in more detail.