One week to the exam, please rate my AWA
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28 Mar 2014, 22:54
“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.”
Citing the number of students who did not protest is much more than that of students who protested, the argument claims that state legislature need not pay attention to the demands of protesting students. Although the argument may appear well-founded at a superficial level, a critical assessment indicates otherwise. Stated in this way, the argument fails to address several key factors, on the basis of which its reasoning could be evaluated. Consequently, the conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is a paucity of evidence; hence, the argument is a fallacious and ultimately unconvincing.
First, the argument readily assumes that just 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building in order to protest against the proposed cuts, however, the argument does not evaluate this fact that there might other protesting students in Waymarsh State College who were not able to travel to the state building for protesting against the proposed cuts. Thus, if the argument had mentioned the precise number of angry students about the cuts and had shown a better picture of the atmosphere among students about the cuts, the argument would have been much clearer.
Second, the argument claims that since the other 12,00 Waymarsh State College students either stayed on campus or left for winter break, they were not concerned about the proposed cuts, nonetheless, this is again a weak claim since the reason why those 12,00 students did not protest could be they were not aware of the plan of protesting against the cuts and 200 students had traveled to Waymarsh State College in order to protest, so if they had known about the protest, they would have been participate the protest. If the argument had determined whether those 1200 students were aware of protest or not, the claim would have been more strengthened.
Finally, the argument states since the number of students who did not protest is far more than the number of protesting students, it is more representative of the state`s college students than are the protesters. This statement is a stretch because in all communities in which members are unhappy about a decision just a limited number of all distressed members start protesting. In fact, since some people are shy or they do not have this ability to express their ideas freely and without fear, they do not participate in protests. So this claim that the number of protesting students is fewer than that of those who did not protest does not demonstrate just a limited number of students are not satisfied with the proposed cuts.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the aforementioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. In order to assess all merits of the argument, it is essential to have full knowledge of all relevant facts. The conclusion could be considerably strengthened, if the author mentioned all the corresponding factors pertaining to the exact number of angry students, whether those 1200 students were aware of protest, and the personality of students regarding protesting. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and vulnerable to criticism.