Free Essay Example: Analysis of the Persuasiveness of Passage

Analysis of the Persuasiveness of Passage 1: School Breakfasts

Looking at the argument by this parent, there are several ways that you can approach to understand the quality of his argument. Let's start by looking at the strength of the inferences in his argument. So when making any statement, you should have enough evidence that whatever argument you are trying to pass across, is valid, based on empirical facts. In this case, the parents bring up the premise that schools should not provide free breakfast for all students. What is the inference for this statement, does the inference have enough evidence to support the premise? The premise that this parent gives is that nutrition is the responsibility of the parent and says that school breakfast will be healthy anyway. So according to this parent, the reason why students should not get free breakfast at school is that the food is not healthy, and it is the responsibility of the parents to provide breakfast for their children. From the basis of inferring the premise, the argument from this parent is quite weak. The inference has no strength at all. The inference is baseless and with no stability at all. There is no evidence that the breakfast provided by the school is unhealthy. The parent could have stated facts based on empirical evidence that breakfast provided in schools in unhealthy. Giving a percentage would have been great.

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For instance, the parent could have said, recent research has shown that 90% of the food served by schools is unhealthy for children, so schools should not provide free breakfast o students. That kind of argument shows that the parent is not only making an argument based on rumors or opinions but based on evidence. The argument with the evidence has the strength of inference. The same mistake is repeated in the place where the parent argues that 'I work hard for my money and make personal sacrifices to provide food for my kids so why should I subsidize someone else because they squander their money or that they just cannot be bothered to work.' The premise of this argument is that I work hard for my money and make personal sacrifices to provide for my kids. The inference is why should I subsidize someone else because they squander their money or they just can't be bother to work. Looking at this argument, the inference is weak, there is no evidence to support the premise. The parent argues that parents who do not provide breakfast for their children squander their money or they prefer not work hard, however, there is no evidence to support this claim. Analyzing the argument by this parent on the basis of the strength of the inference, the parent was not convincing. The parent was not persuasive enough.

Are there any flaws in the reasoning by this parent? Looking at the following argument, 'I work hard for my money and make personal sacrifices to provide food for my kids so why should I subsidize someone else because they squander their money or that they just cannot be bothered to work.' The premise of this argument is that I work hard for my money and make personal sacrifices to provide for my kids. The inference is why I should subsidize someone else because they squander their money or that they cannot be bothered to work. Are there any flaws notable in the above argument? The premise that this parent is trying to defend is that schools should not provide free breakfast for students; however, in the argument above, the parent is not defending his premise ("Inference," 2018). The parent is not bringing forth an argument that will help convince a person that giving free breakfast to students will be a bad idea, instead, this parent is attacking other parents, and making them look bad. To be more convincing, this parent should make the idea of giving breakfast to school children look bad, but instead, this parent makes a move of making the parent who supports the idea to look bad. That is where the flaw comes in the reasoning of this parent. The argument is fallacious because it assumes that parents who want breakfast to be provided for their children squander their money or they do not work at all. Instead of the argument attacking the policy of providing breakfast to school children, the argument is attacking the parents who are not working or who squander their money. That is the reason why the reasoning is flawed. When basin on the flaws of this argument, the parent was not persuasive enough.

Analysis of the Persuasiveness of Passage 2: Organ Sales

Looking at the argument, is it persuasive enough? There are several approaches that can tell the quality of the argument put forward on organ sales ("3 Methods of Persuasion | Rhetoric - Aristotle," 2018). Reading through the argument, it is clear that the person used logical arguments to convince the reader to take the idea of organ sale. He makes several premises to support his conclusion. The initial premise is, 'the only satisfactory reason why the government control behavior is to halt you from hurting others, however, if you sell your body organ to someone, you will not be harming them, you will be helping them' the next premise was,' .no one stops people from giving their organs away, and nobody stops people from giving other people money. The selling of organs is one and the same thing. And the third premise is,' we allow people such as soldiers, sports people and forestry workers to make money from taking risks to their well-being and safety already. If it's the way that somebody chooses to make money, why should we stop them? The conclusion for this argument is that people should be allowed to sell their body organs. For an argument to be logically convincing, all the premises supporting the conclusion need to be true. In this case, all these premises are true. And so the argument is logically persuasive because the premises supporting the conclusion are true. When analyzing this argument of the basis of appealing to logic, the argument is quite persuasive.

Does the argument have the strength of the inference? Looking at the argument, is it strongly based on evidence? Does the inference support the premise with sufficient evidence? The statement, 'the only satisfactory reason why the government control behavior is to halt you from hurting others, however, if you sell your body organ to someone, you will not be harming them, you will be helping them' the inference seems to be true about the government intentions. The other statement that has an inference that supports the premise with truth is,' we allow some of the persons like sports people, soldiers, and forestry workers to earn through taking of risks to their well-being and safety already. It is the way that somebody chooses to make money, why should anyone stop them? The argument is true. Apart from that, the following argument also makes a lot of sense when it comes to inference having empirical evidence over the premise, ' we don't stop people giving their organs away, and we don't stop people giving other people money, and selling organs is just these two things happening together.' People give organs in the real world, and it is completely legal, that is something that is evident. So why not motivate the giver with some money? The inference, in this case, is quite factual. It is based on truth. Everyone knows that you can give your organs for free. When analyzing this argument on the basis of the strength of the inference, this is a compelling argument. It is a persuasive argument based on a strong inference supporting the premise with ample evidence.

Does this argument have flaws in reasoning? The first premise says that people should sell their body organs because the act is not harmful, and by doing so, you would help another person. So this is a reasoning that is not going out of its way. The argument is trying to convince a person to take on the idea of legalizing the selling of body organs, and it is clear that the argument does not go out of the topic, the argument goes straight to the point and sells the idea. The second premise is that we do not stop people from giving their body organs for free, why not allow people to sell their body parts if they can give them for free? This is a statement that is specific; it does not fall out of the subject to try and convince the reader to buy the idea of agreeing to the policy of selling body organs. So this is an argument that does what it is supposed to do, and that persuades a person to warm to the idea of legalizing the sale of body organs. The second premise is not flawed in the way it is reasoned. When analyzing the quality of persuasiveness based on reasoning, this argument is flawless in reasoning. This is an argument that was quite convincing and can easily persuade a person to like the idea of legalizing the sale of body organs.

References

The 3 Methods of Persuasion | Rhetoric - Aristotle. (2018, March 25). Retrieved from https://www.freedominthought.com/archive/the-3-methods-of-persuasion-rhetoric-aristotle

Inference. (2018, October 25). Retrieved from https://philosophyterms.com/inference/