week 4, question 1

Here is example #3 from page 225 analyzed

1. Las Vegas has too many people.

2. There's not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people.

3. The Infrastructure of the city can't handle more than million.

4. The streets are crowded

5. Traffic is always congested

6. The schools are overcrowded, and new ones can't be built fast enough

7. We should stop migration by tough zoning laws in the city and county.

Argument: Yes, this is an argument.

Conclusion: The conclusion is statement #7, that we should stop migration (to Las Vegas) by tough zoning laws to the city and county.

Additional premise needed? I think no additional premise are needed. I think the writer should have added “therefore” to the beginning of the conclusion, and maybe added some statistics to claims #2,3,4,5, & 6 to add validity to them. Statement #1 sets up the argument Statements #2-6 are claims supporting that, and statement 7 is the conclusion.

Identify and sub-argument: Although it is not blatantly stated, I think statements 2-6 can all stand on their own as separate arguments under the main one. For example, I can see “There is not enough water in the city to support more than a million” being made into its own argument, with separate claims supporting that.

Good argument?: I do not think that this is a good argument, although it is decent. I think that the writer left out the fact that a lot of the traffic and street congestion has to due to tourism, and zoning laws would not help that. Statements #2 and #3 are excellent statements that can support their claim, but I feel that they all need statistics to back them up.

I feel like doing these kind of exercises help us learn. I think that dissecting something complex and hard to understand down into smaller parts can help us comprehend it. I feel that I have a better understanding of the exercise after doing this assignment than I did before.