Re-elect Adams. and you will be voting for proven leadership in improving the state's economy. Over the past year alone, 70 percent of the state's workers have has increases in their wages, 5000 new jobs have been created, and six corporations have locate

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Re-elect Adams. and you will be voting for proven leadership in improving the state's economy. Over the past year alone, 70 percent of the state's workers have has increases in their wages, 5000 new jobs have been created, and six corporations have located their headquarters here. Most of the respondents in a recent poll said that they believed that the economy is likely to continue to improve if Adams is re-elected. Adams's opponent, Zebulon, would lead our state in the wrong direction, because Zebulon disagrees with many of Adams's economic policies.

According to the passage, the author encourages the public to vote for Adams, because, at his previous term, 70% of the workers' wages have increased, 5000 new jobs have been created, and six corporations have set up their headquarter in this state. Furthermore, the author also attacks the opponent’s policy, simply stating that the opposing party will lead the state in the wrong direction, since his policy contradicts with that of Adams. However, at first glance, the argument seems to be somewhat convincing, but further consideration reflects that it is based on some reasoning flaws, such as ignoring to illustrate the representativeness of the statistic data and adopting faulty assumption.

First, the author doesn’t clearly identify whether the statistics he cites are representative, and whether the information comes from an non-partial and reliable sources. If the data are solely derived from the campaign of Adams without any third-party confirmation, the argument may suffer from some criticism of not being objective enough to represent the reality. Moreover, the author doesn’t clarify the exact increase in wages, the types of jobs created, and the profits made from having six corporations in the state. Thus, the statistical evidence lacks strong supportive details to substantiate the author’s argument.

Second, the author wrongly assumes that the opposing candidate will not lead the state onto the right path since his proposed policy differs from that of Adams. The statement cannot serve as convincing evidence, because the author doesn’t take time to elaborate the difference between the policies of the two candidates. No detailed information regarding the opposing party has been offered for readers and voters to judge whether the policy of Adams is indeed superior to that of the opponent. Thus, more supporting details are needed to make effective evaluation on both parties’ policies.

In conclusion, the argument is not well-reasoned nor logical. If the author can avoid the reasoning flaws mentioned above, the argument will be much more strengthened, and therefore, more convincing.

Votes
Average: 5 (1 vote)
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Comments

argument 1 -- not OK. need to accept the data are true, but:

state workers' pay raises may have been minuscule and may not have kept up with cost of living or with pay for state workers in other states. Moreover, the 5,000 new jobs may have been too few to bring state unemployment rates down significantly; at the same time, many jobs may have been lost. Finally, the poll indicates that six new corporations located in the state, but fails to indicate if any left.

argument 2 -- OK
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need to argue against the poll too:
'Most of the respondents in a recent poll said that they believed that the economy is likely to continue to improve if Adams is re-elected.'

suggested:
the poll cited by the author is described in the vaguest possible terms. The ad does not indicate who conducted the poll, who responded, or how the poll was conducted. Until these questions are answered, the survey results are worthless as evidence for public opinion about Adams or his economic policies.

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 331 350
No. of Characters: 1743 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.265 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.266 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.833 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.103 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.846 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.58 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5