Argument analysis first trial

[hankal]

Hello,

My GRE date is less than one month away.. Luckily, I do not find major difficulties studying as I can assess my flaws and work on them. However, the writing tasks are too difficult to assess by oneself and I would really love to hear a feedback from your community.

this is my first argument analysis task and I am eager to see you evaluating it.

This is the task:

Twenty years ago, Dr Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village man their Ining in the own biological parents. However, may recent with children group of islands that includes Tertia show that these children spend more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. This research of mine proves that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture is invalid and thus that the observation-centered approach to studying cultures is invalid as well. The interview centered method that my team of graduate students is currently using in Tertia will establish a much more accurate understanding of child-rearing traditions there and in other island cultures." write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument

My response was the following:

The writer claims that interview-centered approach is more efficient and valid than Mr. Field’s observation-centered approach for studying cultures. The argument is based on the assumption that because children talk about their biological parents more than other adults; it will follow that their parents are the ones who raised them. However, this argument is flawed because it lacks evidences and it manipulates the case in an irrelevant way.

 

The writer concludes that interview-centered approach is the most accurate approach for studying culture. This conclusion is drawn based on the assumption that talking about their biological parents means that Tertian children are reared by these biological parents. Nonetheless, the writer does not provide any evidence that talking a lot about parents mean that they were responsible for rearing the children, although providing similar evidence would have strengthened the argument. In addition, the writer states that all outcomes were derived from interviews with children, but he never states anything about interviews with elder age groups. I believe that such a research would yield biased results because it does not take into account different perspectives and it does not use a representative sample.

 

Based on the above assumptions, the writer states that Mr. Field study is invalid and, thus, the observation-centered approach does not work for culture studies. The reasoning behind this conclusion is not sound because even if Mr. Field’s study did not reveal accurate results, the approach cannot be invalidated consequently. The writer refutes Mr. Field’s study without mentioning its outcomes. Moreover, He believes that his approach is more valid based on his own point of view; nevertheless, the argument does not provide a neutral judgement for both approaches.

 

I think that providing any clue about the general behaviors and traditions of adult and children population in Tertian Islands would have led to a resolution. For instance, if most children behave in very similar ways the conclusion that rearing is held by the entire village could be strengthened. In contrary, if children from different families behave in radically diverse ways the assumption that biological parents are responsible for raising their children would have been validated. On another hand, the study of Mr. Field was held twenty years before the interview-centered study. This fact makes the comparison unfair unless sufficient details were provided on how the community evolved within this time period.

 

I am waiting for your comments