Write a response to the following argument.
The following appeared in a memo from the chairperson of the school board in the town of Saluda. “For the past five years, Mr. Charles Schade has been the music director at Steel City High School, and during that time the school band from Steel City High has won three regional band competitions. In addition, the quality of the music rehearsal facilities and musical instruments at Steel City High has improved markedly over the past five years. Because of such successes at Steel City High, the Saluda school board should hire Mr. Shade to plan and direct the general music education programs for the entire Saluda school system.”
The writer of the argument recommends that if the Saluda School board does such a thing, the students in their school will improve in music and regional band competitions. However, this recommendation cannot be accepted as it is because it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.
The first problem with the argument is that the writer considered no differences between the students in both schools. There is no strong evidence to prove that the students in the two schools are the same in all respects. Maybe the students in the Saluda school generally are less interested in music bands and related activities or maybe their field of study, by no means are related to music and things like that.
Secondly, the writer of the arguments also assumed that the conditions in the region where Saluda School is are exactly the same as that of Steel City High region. Clearly, we cannot guarantee that Mr. Shade’s music education programs will result the same outcomes in all regions. Maybe music progress in one region is higher than the progress in other regions or maybe there are more music bands in one region so the competition and also the penchant for music is a lot more than that of other regions.
A third problem with the argument as I can see is that family and students’ life outside the school are another important factors which the writer of the argument did not analyze. Parents and other people outside the school may affect the students’ progress and performance in music education. For example, in one family there are other persons who play a music instrument or encourage their children to music and art. Or maybe the students’ progress is a result of their tight and regular practices at home not the school music education programs. So as I clearly stated there are no evidences in support of which the students’ progress is due to Mr. Schade and his programs.
To put it together, the writer’s recommendation is based on a set of unsubstantiated assumptions all of which are questionable and the writer did not give us any strong evidence to validate the recommendation. In the final analysis, the recommendations can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to in the body paragraphs are all removed.
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flaws:
You need to analyze the structure of the statement and argue against them one by one:
premise 1:
For the past five years, Mr. Charles Schade has been the music director at Steel City High School, and during that time the school band from Steel City High has won three regional band competitions.
suggested argument 1:
the chairperson unfairly assumes that the three band awards were attributable to Schade's abilities and efforts. perhaps the band won all three awards early in Schade's tenure, and his predecessor is to be credited.
premise 2:
In addition, the quality of the music rehearsal facilities and musical instruments at Steel City High has improved markedly over the past five years.
suggested argument 2:
It is entirely possible that the improvements were the result of another administrator's efforts, or even the efforts of parents
conclusion:
Because of such successes at Steel City High, the Saluda school board should hire Mr. Shade to plan and direct the general music education programs for the entire Saluda school system
suggested argument 3:
perhaps one or more other job candidates would be even more suitable for the job.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: ? Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 393 350
No. of Characters: 1854 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.452 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.718 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.647 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.911 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.619 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5