prachi18oct
The following appeared in a report presented for discussion at a meeting of the
directors of a company that manufactures parts for heavy machinery.
“The falling revenues that the company is experiencing coincide with delays in
manufacturing. These delays, in turn, are due in large part to poor planning in
purchasing metals. Consider further that the manager of the department that
handles purchasing of raw materials has an excellent background in general
business, psychology, and sociology, but knows little about the properties of metals.
The company should, therefore, move the purchasing manager to the sales
department and bring in a scientist from the research division to be manager of the
purchasing department.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
Conclusion: In order to lessen the problem of falling revenues , The company should move PM to sales and bring scientist to be manager of PD
1. Falling revenues coincide with the delays in purchasing
2. Manager of PD has no background in metals
Essay:-
The report appearing in the meeting of the directors raises the issue of falling revenues of the company. The report also makes a recommendation
to move the current manager of the purchasing department and bring in a scientist to take over that role. The line of reasoning used by the author
to reach this recommendation is based on several unsubstantiated assumptions.
First, the author assumes that since the company is facing the decline in revenues and delays in the purchasing of metals, these two events are
correlated in the sense that one causes the other. Just because two events happen simultaneously, so it does not prove their correlation anyhow.
It could be possible that the revenues are falling due to some other reasons such as decrease in sales or reduction of prices of the product.
Without providing any evidence to eliminate other possible causes of the decline, the author presents a weak argument.
Second, the author assumes that the reason of the delays in purchase of metals is poor planning since the current manager does not have a background knoweledge
of properties of metals. This reasoning is completely unfounded. The author does not provide any evidence to substantiate this claim.
It is quite likely that the manager has business knowledge required for such deals and has been able to execute them successfully in the past. Without any particular evidence that this job role requires
knowledge of metal properties, it will be unreasonable to believe so. Also, to evaluate this reasoning further, it will be useful to determine
whether the current manager has been able to successfully plan the purchasing of raw materials in past.
Further, the author recommends that a scientist be hired for the purchasing manager position. The author fails to provide any evidence to strengthen
the claim that the scientist will be better suited for the position and will be able to lessen the delays in the purchase time.
In sum, the author presents a weak and unconvincing argument. However, it can be strengthened if the author provides evidence against the assumptions.
The author will have to provide evidence to rule out other reasons that could have caused the decline in revenues. Also, the author will have
to show that the purchase of raw materials requires knowledge of metal properties and the current manager has not been successful in this job in the past.
Without these evidence, the argument is flawed and will likely not address the issue at hand.
You've put some good ideas down in this essay, and I think we'll get a
4.5 for it. Putting a few thoughts down below (by para).
1 You could better explain the reasoning used. That is, mention the whole
properties of metals bit. Remove the word
appearing.
2 Use an
a instead of a
the before
decline in revenues, unless you're pointing to this specific
decline. Remove the
so after
simultaneously. For example, we can say
we can't relax just because the test has been postponed. But we can't combine
because and
so and say something like
just because the test has been postponed, so we can't relax.
3 Reason should be followed by
for in this particular case.
Metal properties doesn't sound idiomatic.
4 This sounds like something that could have been introduced in the preceding paragraph (related point).
5 Evidence against the assumptions is most likely incorrect (the author needs to
strengthen his or her assumptions).
These evidence is incorrect (
evidence is singular).