The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper: “This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs.
The argument claims that during the past winter 200 students of Waymarsh State College protested against the state legislature against the proposed cuts in funding for various college programs of the state. The protested this in the state capitol building as they were against the state legislature. The author also stated that the other 12,000 student of Waymarsh State College didn’t participate in the protest as they either stayed on campus or left for winter break, and hence the author assumes that these 12,000 students are not concerned about their education. And since the number of protestors is less compared to the number of students who did not participate in the protest, the legislature did not feel that to help the students funding for various state college programs. Here, the author manipulates the facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence and hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
Firstly, as only 200 students from Waymarsh State College participated in the protest and rest 12000 students did not participate, the author assumes that the 12000 students are not interested in education. This is an invalid assumption as one cannot think the majority student lacks interest in education only because they did not participate in the protest against the proposed cuts in the funding for various state college programs. It might be possible that those 12000 students wanted to participate in the protest and were against the state legislative but could not do so because of some reasons. One reason might be possible that those students were involved in some kind of jobs, because of which they could not participate in the protest. Moreover, those 12000 students were involved in another kind of act which could help them in funding for the programs. Hence, the argument was not clear as it was based on examples of ill-faith and poor reasoning.
Secondly, since the majority of the students did not participate in the protest, it cannot be assumed that they are wrong and not heed their protest. Another reason which might be possible is that, the 200 students who participated in the protest were in much need of help through funding and the rest might be of such background that without sufficient funding also, they might get entry in the various state college programs. Hence, the legislative could have listened and given a little thought over this protest, rather assuming that the majority of the students are not interested and not heeding the appeals of the 200students of Waymarsh state College.
In conclusion, the argument is seriously flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. The author fails to mention several key factors by giving more evidences and examples related to the background of the students which would have helped the author in proving his point. Ultimately, without much well-defined information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.
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