Intern
Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 39
Location: Spain
Concentration: General Management, Technology
GPA: 3.5
WE:Management Consulting (Consulting)
Please, could you evaluate my very first essay AWA? I'll return!! :)
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08 Sep 2015, 10:09
Candidate: Our city's students have suffered long enough. Over the mayor's four years in office, our district's math and science scores have hovered well below the national average, even while our average teacher's salary has increased. Our student-per-class ratio is laughable, yet he has made no progress on building a new school. He simply cannot be trusted with our children's future; if you care about education, I am the only candidate you can support.
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.
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The three arguments given by the candidate to criticize the current mayor's performance in what concerns children education in the city seem reasonable: scores being lower than national average, high student-per-class ratio and no plans of buiding a new school. However, there are three things the candidate could do to strengthen his points: quantify, contextualize, and propose.
Regarding quantification, providing data rather than stating facts would make his arguments seem more trustworthy. He could, for example, give the exact number of points below the average where the grade of city's students lie, or provide the student-per-class ratio. For many people, seeing real numbers may be more convincing than reading biased statements, such as "laughable [...] ratio".
The second thing the candidate could do is to contextualize his statements. For instance, when he says that the average teacher's salary has increased, the reader might wonder: how much has it increased? Is it also lower than the national average? How does he think the salary and district's math and science grades correlate? He could also provide a reason to why he considers the student-per-class ratio laughable.
Furthermore, I suggest he explains why he should be the only candidate to be supported. The statement "I am the only candidate you can support" is not sufficiently fundamented. He explains why in his opinion the current mayor has not performed sufficiently in education-related matters. His audience may or may not agree with his arguments, but these explain in no case why he is the ideal candidate and rather only why the current mayor is not. He could alterantively explain what he would do in order to have math and science score increase, or if he would raise the average teacher's salary, or if, on the contrary, he would decrease it. From his statements, it can be implied the intention to build a new school. In this case, he could explain where he would build it, and with which funds.
As a conclusion, the candidate presents what could be valid arguments of why the current's mayor performance should not continue, but in order to proof their validity, he needs to provide evidence. He may do this by providing quantitative data and by contextualizing. Finally he needs to provide the reasons that make him "the only candidate you can support", which he may do by listing his proposals.