Analyzing Arguments
Read the following paragraphs and decide the kind of argument and the type of evidence used: (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources, or (C) illustrative incidents.
Far from mitigating the earlier threats to birds and other forms of life on the earth, man has further endangered their survival. Of earth’s 9,000 species of birds, about 1,000 are already at risk. And while the old perils – habitat destruction, pesticide poisoning, shooting, oil spills, migrant killing TV towers, and others – continue, we are adding new threats. Especially sinister are the gaseous byproducts of advanced technology – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFCs – the products responsible for acid precipitation, ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect, developments whose long-term impact on birds (and other life) we are beginning, nervously to guess at. … - Alan Pistorius, “Species Lost,” Country Journal
1. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” ¬ Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail
2. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
Watching TV violence can be seriously dangerous for little kids. One 5-year old boy from Boston recently got up from watching a teen-slasher film and stabbed a 2-year-old girl with a butcher knife. He didn’t mean to kill her (and luckily he did not). He was just imitating the man on the video. - Tipper Gore, “Curbing the Sexploitation Industry,” Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society
3. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
Everyone should drink at least two liters of water everyday. Our sports coach says that becoming dehydrated, especially during exercise, is very dangerous.
4. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
Most of the miseries in this world are caused by war, and when the wars are over, they do not know what they were fighting about. Disputes must be settled by peaceful negotiations between countries and between people. Or, failing that, we need “passive resistance,” the method advocated by Gandhi and also by Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
China has long prided itself on having come up with many of the world’s most important inventions. Now the country that gave us gunpowder, paper money, and the noodle can claim responsibility for another of human civilization’s highest achievements: we have the Chinese, or at least their distant ancestors, to thank for cocktails. According to a report released last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., residents of the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province were raising toasts with fruit wines and rice spirits in 7000 B.C. – usurping Iran’s place in the tipple timeline by at least a thousand years. Susan Jakes, “Chen. Jiahu, With Hawthorn Accents,” Time
6. (A) statistics and facts, (B) reliable authority/sources,
or (C) illustrative incidents
After nearly two years of stubborn optimism, Japan’s economic recovery seems to be skidding to a halt. Last week’s government figures showed that the country only narrowly avoided a return to recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic product – with 0.1% GDP growth in the third quarter following a 0.1% contraction in the second. “We are entering a slow patch, and there is no obvious exit,” says Peter Morgan, chief economist at HSBC Securities in Tokyo.
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