could anyone please read my answer and let me know my errors and flaws
thanks in advance
The question : The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper.
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
My answer:
The author claims that the Bugle newspaper’s lower price leads to a decrease in Mercury’s circulation. Therefore the author suggests reducing the Mercury’s price in order to increase its circulation; and concludes that this solution will cause more businesses to buy advertising spaces. Stating this way, the announcement has two flaws and the conclusion is based on assumptions that doesn’t have supporting facts.
First of all, the author believes that the Bugle’s lower price is the only factor in the past 5 years that has affected the Mercury’s circulation, yet didn’t provide any supporting facts and evidence and therefore is a weak assumption. To strengthen this statement, he/she must answer to the questions how the competing price affected the Mercury’s circulation.
Second, the author suggests reducing the Mercury’s price below the Bugle’s in order to increase its circulation to former levels. Again he/she must present enough evidence to ensure that by putting this solution to work, the Mercury’s circulation will go back to where it used to be in order to make this assumption more convincing.
Finally, attracting more businesses to buy advertising spaces in the Mercury is stated as the result of the increased circulation. This statement is too weak and unconvincing since no supporting fact or evidence from past is provided in the announcement.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. In order to assess the merits of a certain decision, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors and prevent all the relevant facts. In this particular case, the argument would have been considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts providing supporting statistics.