anuj88
Hello,
Please help in evaluating the below essay. I am new to the forum so please do excuse any error in the post format.
The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts.
“In a recent citywide poll, fifteen percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc
The arguments claims that in order to maintain the attendance of city’s art museum, some of the city’s fund for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television since public television are the main medium that have contributed to the growth of visitors to the city museum and is now facing funding cuts from corporate sector. Stating the facts this way, the argument is providing a distorted view of the situation. The correlation is based on poor reasoning and the argument fails to consider several important parameters which could have been used for evaluation. The conclusion is based on assumptions for which proper evidences have not been provided and hence the conclusion is weak and faulty
Firstly the argument is distorting the facts stated. It uses the statistics from a recent poll which states that there is an increase of 15 % in number of people who view art shows on TV over the last 5 years which is equal to the percentage growth of number of visitors to the art museum over the last 5 years. This statement fails to consider the overall increase in population of the town. For example, if the town population increased by 100% over last 5 years while the number of people viewing the program has grown by just 15%, we cannot conclude that TV shows have actually led to the popularity of the museum. If argument provides the information regarding overall growth of population then the statistics could have been appropriately judged.
Secondly the argument is providing incomplete picture of the actual scenario. It states in the second line that since corporate funding for TV shows will decrease, the attendance of museum will also correspondingly decrease. This is based on a faulty assumption that TV shows are the exclusive medium of promotion of the arts museum. If we consider a scenario where apart from the TV shows, active promotions about the museum are done by other modes of mass public communications like radio, newspaper etc then if one of the sources are taken off the air ( in this case TV), then there will be no major impact on the popularity of the museum. Hence without giving any background information regarding the modes of promotion, nothing can be said about the impact of removal of TV art shows.
Lastly, the conclusion as stated in the argument is incomplete. The argument concludes that city funds for supporting art should be allocated to public television. In this conclusion, the argument fails to clarify if this funding would be used exclusively for art shows aired on TV or for all shows. It is likely that these funds are not used for art shows at all and thus the basic aim of promoting the art museum will remain unfulfilled. If the argument would have thrown some light on any regulating mechanism for the funds allocated, the conclusion would have had a better chance of actually serving the purpose intended if implemented.
Overall, the argument has several shortcomings which have been highlighted in the passages above. If we are provided additional information regarding the rate of growth of population in the city, the extent to which TV shows promote the art museum as compared to other mediums and details of proposed allocation of funds to the TV shows, the argument would have been more convincing.
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Upon submitting each essay, you will receive feedback on how well your essays—
•Identify and analyze significant flaws in the argument
•Support your critique using relevant supporting reasons and/or examples
•Develop a clearly organized and coherent response
•Demonstrate control of language, including diction, syntax, and conventions of standard written English
With each $29.99 subscription you purchase, you’ll receive two unique essay prompts and have the chance to write four essays, two for each prompt.
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William Strunk Jr. (Author), E. B. White (Author), Roger Angell (Foreword)
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