Argument17

17.The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Walnut Grove town newspaper. "Walnut Grove's town council has advocated switching from EZ Disposal (which has had the contract for trash collection services in Walnut Grove for the past ten years) to ABC Waste, because EZ recently raised its monthly fee from $2,000 to $2,500 a month, whereas ABC's fee is still $2,000. But the town council is mistaken; we should continue using EZ. EZ collects trash twice a week, while ABC collects only once. Moreover, EZ-which, like ABC, currently has a fleet of 20 trucks-has ordered additional trucks. Finally, EZ provides exceptional service: 80 percent of respondents to last year's town survey agreed that they were 'satisfied' with EZ's performance."
(454 words)
In this argument the author comes to the conclusion that Walnut Grove's town should remain the contrast with EZ Dispose, though the Dispose has raised their fee recently. To justify that, the author points out that EZ has ordered additional trucks, which means it will have more trucks than its competitor, ABC Waste, which still has a fleet of 20 trucks. The author also cites that EZ' s performance has been praised by 80% of respondents in a recent survey. Close scrutiny of this argument reveals that it is unconvincing in several aspects.First and foremost, EZ collects trash more frequencely than ABC doesn't mean that the former one can provide higher quality. It is highly possible that the town which ABC serve do not have much less than Walnut Grove town which EZ work for, it is not nessesary for ABC to do its job twice a week, maybe that is the reason why ABC remains its charge. Without accounting for these and other possible dissimilaries, any analogy between the two company, the author can not assume that EZ is better.In addition, the author appreciates that EZ's ordering more truck than ABC. However, we know the fact that to make a commitment is one thing, to keep it is far more difficult. There is no indication that they might fulfill their promise. Even if EZ has had additional trucks, there is no evidence that they will use them for serving Walnut Grove town. There may be some other towns ask EZ to collect crash for them so the company find it should increase the number of trucks. As a consequence, the author could not make any prediction.Finally, the survey cited by the author is too vague to be informative. The claim does not indicate who conducted the survey, and how the survey was conducted-maybe the EZ itself planned the survey, so the questions were leading, then people might echo with expected answers, thus the results would be greatly unconvicing, and it is possible that the reason why many respendents were satisfied with EZ's performance is that they got a chance to compare, thus they do not know how better a trash collect company can be. Until these questions are answered, the results are worthless as evidence.In sum, the conclusion reached in this argument is invalid and misleading. To make it logically acceptable, the arguer would have to substantiate that ABC will be a worse company for collecting trash for Walnut Grove town. Moreover, I would suspected my judgment about the credibility of this argument until the author can previde more information about fee it charge is worth its job, maybe the contrast with ABS is a good chance to see.