This is a GRE argument analysis. If possible score from 6.
The following is a letter from an editor at Liber Publishing Company to the company's president.
"In recent years, Liber has unfortunately moved away from its original mission: to publish the works of regional small-town authors instead of those of big-city authors. Just last year, 90 percent of the novels we published were written by authors who maintain a residence in a big city. Although this change must have been intended to increase profits, it has obviously backfired, because Liber is now in serious financial trouble. The only way to address this problem is to return to our original mission. If we return to publishing only the works of regional small-town authors, our financial troubles will soon be resolved."
My response: This letter advise Liber Publishing company president to publish only the works of regional small town authors. According to the author, though publishing small-town authors works is the original mission of the company, 90% of the novels published by the company in the previous year were written by big-city authors and he/she believe that deviation from this mission is the cause of financial troubles in the company. The evidence provided by the author is not sufficient to decide that the company deviated from its mission. Also, no convincing evidence supports his/her claim that publishing only small-town authors novel would solve the financial problems of the company.
First of all, it is not clear whether the original mission of the company was restated or not. Many companies, start with limited missions and when they succeed and expand they change their missions, so possibly the company changed its mission and vision and the original mission is nothing now but history. In such case, the author objections regarding percent of small-town novel became meaningless.
Second, what is the definition of small-town author? Is it mean authors who were born in small towns, who lived part of their lives in small towns, who write about small towns or who live currently in small towns. If we considered the first three definitions, the company may not be deviated from its mission as in these three cases, small-town author should not necessarily leave in a small town.
Third, What is the evidence that publishing only the work of small-town authors would solve the financial problems and what is the evidence that the financial problems are caused by the company selection of novels. Many market causes could be involved.
In sum, we need to know whether the original mission is still valid and we need to know how did the company define small-town author. More analysis is required about the financial problems of the company to decide whether publishing only small-town authors work will help or not.
This letter advises Liber Publishing Company 's president to publish only the works of regional small town authors...
I'll move a comma here:
Many companies start with limited missions, and when they succeed and expand they change their missions, so possibly the company changed...
Do not capitalize unless it is the first word of a sentence:
Third, What what is the evidence that publishing only the work of small-town authors would solve the financial problems , and what is the evidence that the financial problems are caused by the company's selection of novels? Many market causes could be involved.
:-)
Thank you Kevin...
I just started to revise punctuation few days ago and I would like to ask why do you decide to remove the comma? To me, it seems that they are 2 complete sentences connected with "and"?
Also I would like to ask: Is it acceptable in English to refer to the author here by"he", or is it better to refer to the author every time by "he/she"?
Well, ordinarily in academic writing you would be responding to an actual person, and you would know whether it is a he or a she. In weird cases like this, where I do not know the gender, I always use the female pronoun to help compensate for too many centuries of overusing the male pronoun by default. I also try to avoid saying "mankind," because I can say "humankind," etc. We have gender oppression in our language! :-) So... I try to stick with using "she" by default.
