The following was the prompt that came in the mock:
The following appeared in a memorandum from a member of a financial management and consulting firm:
“We have learned from an employee of Windfall, Ltd., that its accounting department, by checking about 10 percent of the last month’s purchasing invoices for errors and inconsistencies, saved the company some $10,000 in overpayments. In order to help our clients increase their net gains, we should advise each of them to institute a policy of checking all purchasing invoices for errors. Such a recommendation could also help us get the Windfall account by demonstrating to Windfall the rigorousness of our methods.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counter examples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
My essay:
The following argument essentially states a recommendation by a member of a financial management and consulting firm to institute a certain policy by which they can help their clients as well as gain a new business deal. But the manner in which the member comes up with this recommendation is not pragmatic, neither is it reliable. There are certain faults and assumptions within the given premise, which makes it rather weak.
Firstly, the member states that he has learned some information from an employee of Windfall Ltd. which says that by checking 10% of last month's purchasing invoices, the accounting department of Windfall ltd. saved the company $10000 in overpayments. Here, the member of the financial management and consulting firm fails to provide information about the informant. If the informant is deceitful, then the whole argument falls apart. There is also a possibility of exaggerated monetary figures. The member needs to explicitly provide more details if the argument is to be taken seriously by the company.
Secondly, the argument does not provide any details regarding Windfall Ltd. It could be possible that Windfall is not a very experienced company, leading to those huge errors and inconsistencies in purchasing invoices. Maybe Windfall Ltd. hired some freshers last month who messed up the purchase invoices count. Blindly accepting this fact and advising clients to follow the same method would not be the correct move for the company. The clients could find this method too time consuming and unnecessary if they don't find any major errors in the purchasing invoices.
Finally, the argument concludes by saying that adopting this method of double checking invoices would help them in gaining the Windfall account as this practice will let Windfall know of their rigorous methods. Here, the argument assumes that there will be no other competition and they could possibly gain the Windfall account on the basis of the aforementioned method. For instance, Windfall could give more importance to other aspects such as the firm's reputation, it market share, etc., before making business deals. By merely following a practice that Windfall itself follows wouldn't be enough to demonstrate the rigorousness. Thus, considering all these pointers, the stated argument is not realistic and could be possibly strengthened by providing a few more details of Windfall Ltd.
Pls evaluate my essay.
Sajjad1994