Kindly Review my AWA

Question

Hello,

Request you all to kindly review and rate my AWA as given below and tell me how can I improve.
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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.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc

Answer:-
The argument claims that because a competing lower priced newspaper , the Bugle, came into circulation five years ago, the circulation of The Mercury has declined by 10,000 readers . The argument claims that if The Mercury lowers its price below that of the Bugle, its circulation will reach at par to its previous levels. And the increased circulation with further prompt businesses to buy advertising space in the Mercury. Stating this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on the assumption for which there is no clear evidence. Hence the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
First , the argument readily assumes that because the competing newspaper, which was started five years ago, is lower priced, it has resulted in lower circulation for The Mercury. This argument is stretched and could not be substantiated in any way. Just because two events occur simultaneously is no ground to consider a causal relation between the two. It could be possible that the quality of the content in The Mercury fell and thus was not well received by the public resulting in drop in its readership. The argument could have been much clearer if it stated the statistical example or poll of The Mercury’s readers showing the causal relationship between the start-up of new newspaper the drop in readership.
Second ,the Argument claims that dropping the price for The Mercury below that off The Bagle will restore the lost circulation for The Mercury and this will attract more businesses to buy advertising space. This is again weak and unconvincing as the argument does not demonstrate the correlation between drop in the price for The Mercury and increase in the subscribers of the newspaper. Possibly, the readers of newspaper would not buy the newspaper if the newspapers had many advertisements which The Mercury plans to attract once its readership increases. If the argument had provided the evidences that are stated above, it would have been much more convincing.
Finally, If there is an increase in the readership of The mercury, then will the increase in the advertisement not again defer the readers from again unsubscribing from the The Mercury. Without the answers to above question, the argument seems to be more of a wishful thinking rather than the substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author mentioned the relevant facts. In order to assess the merit of a certain situation, it is essential to have the full knowledge of all the contributing factors.

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jkolachi · Answer

Here's what I think this essay can improve on.

1) The introduction is too short and doesn't really talk about how you will address the problems with the passage. You are taking too many words to say what could be said in one short sentence. i.e.

1) The argument is based on the assumption that the decrease in readership is due to competition from XYZ newspaper. The passage argues that cutting price would lead to increase in readership levels to former levels. The author makes the classic causation fallacy, confusing correlation for causation without any demonstrable evidence. Furthermore the passage argues that attaining former readership levels would attract more business. This assumptions is also based on faulty logic and makes an assumption without any concrete evidence. I will attempt to demonstrate how these fallacies lead the author to make a faulty conclusion.

(This is how I would write the intro.... doesn't have to be in those words but I would point out the bad assumptions and the bad logic). I wouldn't spend to much time re-writing the argument because that wastes time and prob don't add any value to the essay). Also you're prob focusing too much on punctuation.... keep the sentences simpler and you will prob not make punctuation mistakes and prob save yourself plenty of time.

1) First paragraph is good, I wouldn't change too much but I would add some more to it. Eliminate the use of "Because of", that is not proper English. Change it to something else. 
 "because the competing newspaper, which was started five years ago, is lower priced, it has resulted in lower circulation for The Mercury.  " You could rephrase this by saying

The argument assumes that the decline in readership is caused by the competing newspaper's lower price point. --

"  could not be substantiated in any way " (awkward) don't say that. Instead say- cannot be substantiated. or simpler use words ... The claim lacks evidence, or Claim is made without any substantiating evidence.

" Stating this way " Eliminate all these useless fillers. Instead just say "the argument fails to mention several key factors,.."

"It could be possible that the quality of the content in The Mercury fell " Dont say it this way... dont use words like "it could be possible" ... Instead say "One of the factors that may have led to the drop in readership could be a drop in quality" even this is very wordy. I would rephrase -

The drop in readership may have resulted from several factors including a drop in quality, availability of alternative new sources or lack of interest. (the factors don't matter, we need to focus on the Structure of the argument not the reasons).

" The argument could have been much clearer if it stated the statistical example or poll of The Mercury’s readers showing the causal relationship between the start-up of new newspaper the drop in readership ." This is not bad. I would say - "could be instead of could have been.... just wordy and use simple tenses). If it provided concrete evidence i.e. polls.... etc...

The structure isn't bad but I think you need to focus on the choice of words. I assume you're a non-native speaker and if that's the case then keep the language simple. Go for the simpler tenses and shorter sentences. Focus on the structure of the argument. Focus on the bad assumptions, faulty logic and how it can be improved. Think critical reasoning, Focus on the assumption and think about how an argument can be strengthened and weakened. Use the sample type of thinking here.

Hope this helps!

Kindly Review my AWA

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