The following appeared in the editorial section of a campus newspaper.
Because occupancy rates for campus housing fell during the last academic year, so did housing revenues. To solve the problem, campus housing officials should reduce the number of available housing units, thereby increasing the occupancy rates. Also, to keep students from choosing to live off-campus, housing officials
should lower the rents, thereby increasing demand.
The argument that because occupancy rates fell during last academic year, so did housing revenues omits several key factors that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. The statement that follows the description of how this problem can be solved describes various measures that should be undertaken by official to boost revenues. This alone does not constitute a logical argument in favor of implementing those measures and therefore, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
First, the argument claims that because occupancy rate fell, so did housing revenues. This is a very weak, unsupported claim and omits other key factors, which caused this situation. For example, it could be that because of several complaints of ill maintained housing units from students the campus was renovated to improve the housing facilities. And during that period of renovation the maintenance costs were particularly high and thus led to fall in revenues. So without knowing about other factors such as the one mentioned above the correlation between occupancy rates and housing revenues cannot be established.
Second, the argument proposes few measures to be undertaken to solve the problem. But the argument ignores other possibilities, which should have been taken in account to evaluate these measures more comprehensibly. The argument proposes to reduce the number of housing units but what if the enrollment during the next year is unprecedentedly high, so even by not reducing housing units the occupancy could increase. The other measure which argument proposes is to lower the rents so students dont choose off-campus housing. This again is a very weak proposal for increasing demand as the argument neglects that lowering of rents would negatively affect the maintenance and other basic facilities. Hence, instead of increasing demand for on-campus housing, students would have to opt for off-campus housing. Thereby further reducing the revenues.
In conclusion, the argument could have been strengthened if it mentioned other key factors that led to fall in revenues and considered possibilities for evaluating the proposed measures clearly. But in this particular case, without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.![]()
Because occupancy rates for campus housing fell during the last academic year, so did housing revenues. To solve the problem, campus housing officials should reduce the number of available housing units, thereby increasing the occupancy rates. Also, to keep students from choosing to live off-campus, housing officials
should lower the rents, thereby increasing demand.
The argument that because occupancy rates fell during last academic year, so did housing revenues omits several key factors that must be addressed to substantiate the argument. The statement that follows the description of how this problem can be solved describes various measures that should be undertaken by official to boost revenues. This alone does not constitute a logical argument in favor of implementing those measures and therefore, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
First, the argument claims that because occupancy rate fell, so did housing revenues. This is a very weak, unsupported claim and omits other key factors, which caused this situation. For example, it could be that because of several complaints of ill maintained housing units from students the campus was renovated to improve the housing facilities. And during that period of renovation the maintenance costs were particularly high and thus led to fall in revenues. So without knowing about other factors such as the one mentioned above the correlation between occupancy rates and housing revenues cannot be established.
Second, the argument proposes few measures to be undertaken to solve the problem. But the argument ignores other possibilities, which should have been taken in account to evaluate these measures more comprehensibly. The argument proposes to reduce the number of housing units but what if the enrollment during the next year is unprecedentedly high, so even by not reducing housing units the occupancy could increase. The other measure which argument proposes is to lower the rents so students dont choose off-campus housing. This again is a very weak proposal for increasing demand as the argument neglects that lowering of rents would negatively affect the maintenance and other basic facilities. Hence, instead of increasing demand for on-campus housing, students would have to opt for off-campus housing. Thereby further reducing the revenues.
In conclusion, the argument could have been strengthened if it mentioned other key factors that led to fall in revenues and considered possibilities for evaluating the proposed measures clearly. But in this particular case, without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.