Intern
Joined: 26 Jun 2013
Posts: 1
Given Kudos: 3
Concentration: General Management, Technology
WE:Project Management (Computer Software)
Please rate my AWA (1 - V - Federville Farms)
[#permalink]
24 Aug 2014, 08:00
Hi all,
It would be great if you could rate my AWA below.
I captured the distribution of time between first jotting down ideas, initial draft and review and update.
Recommendations on timing would also help.
Also, I copied and checked it in Word and found no speling errors. It did not flag any grammatical errors either.
Many thanks in advance!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question:
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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis (Time to analyze - 4:12, Time to Write: 16:43, Review and clean up: remaining)
The argument that Federville Farms will offer the best camping experience for children in summer is flawed. The author fails to justify how the location is safe for children and also provides very few details on the activities available at the location. The survey data which is used to justify the author's point does not tell us about how and where the survey was conducted which makes it difficult to compare it with other summer camps.
First of all, most parents would pay a great deal of attention to the safety of a new place when they send their children to it. The author argues that since the facility is family owned, it is safe for children. There is explanation given on the relationship between the ownership of the camping business and its safety. It is possible that since the establishment is family owned, it employs family members in the safety staff who may not actually be as qualified or as good at managing children as trained professionals. The author also cites the existence of more lifeguards at the camp than any other camp in the state. This does not necessarily imply that the camp is safer. Perhaps the camp site is so large it needs more lifeguards, but it does not have the largest number of lifeguard by unit area. There is also no information provided on other factors that impact safety such as medical staff and availability of first aid. The absence of such information puts the safety of the camp, often the primary concern of parents, in question.
Secondly, there are results from a survey which are used to make the Federville Farms summer camp look more attractive. The date of the survey, the audience of the survey and many other details on the survey are actually omitted which makes the argument less convincing. If the audience of the survey who ranked it highest in camper satisfaction were mostly adults, then it is unlikely that the camp is such a great place for kids. Also, since the author does not give details on when the survey was conducted, we do not know if there are newer camps which have come up recently that are even better than Federville Farms. More importantly, the survey details do not mention how many other farms were in scope. If the survey chose a limited number of farms then there might be other farms, outside of the ones surveyed, which may be even better.
Had the author provided details on how the farm is safer citing information on medical staff or about how near it is to a hospital, it would have made the argument more credible. Had the author explained the relationship between business ownership and safety, the fact that the farm is family owned would boost the argument for the camp's safety. If the survey results were supplemented with specifics on the people who visit the camp as well as what kind of other places were included in the survey, it would be easier to compare Federville Farms with other camping destinations. However, with such details missing, the argument in its current state remains highly unsubstantiated.