Hey guys! Would be really grateful if some expert could evaluate this attempt. Thank you:)
“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.”The argument claims that the readership of The Mercury has gone down because of the circulation of a competing lower priced newspaper, The Bugle and that the best way to recover from this situation is for The Mercury to lower its prices below that of The Bugle. Stated in this way, the argument reveals examples of leap of faith and poor reasoning. It fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence rendering the argument unconvincing.
First, the argument readily assumes a causal relationship between the circulation of a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle and the decline in readership of The Mercury. It fails to acknowledge that The Mercury may have lost readers due to other factors such as circulation of fake news, low coverage of pertinent issues or loss of goodwill. The price of the newspapers may have nothing to do with the sales level. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that there were no other factors that could have led to decreased sales.
Second, the argument claims that the best way for The Mercury to increase its readership is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as it rests on the assumption that lower the price of the newspaper, more the readership. It also assumes that the pricing strategy that worked for The Bugle will also work for The Mercury. The argument overlooks the possibility that The Bugle may attract readers because of its high quality of articles and that readers may not switch to The Mercury even if it reduces it price. If the argument had provided evidence that the readers consider nothing but price as the sole factor for purchasing a newspaper, then the argument would have been convincing.
Finally, the argument claims that the increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more business to buy advertising space in the paper. This statement is a stretch as it is not supplemented by relevant data. There is no way to prove the causal relationship assumed in the argument. Without sufficient data to back this up, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed because of the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts discussed above. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. In this particular case, the author should have provided sufficient evidence to solidify the causal relationship between the price of a newspaper and its level of readership. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.