Spotting the Reasons in the Editorial (Fifth Page)

Paragraph 4

This paragraph shifts our attention away from how the federal government has been
meddling in the affairs of the Minden school district to the superintendent's response to this meddling: "he felt the government is picking on the school district." The editorial writer then adds a note of sympathy and understanding when he or she says "It's not hard to understand why he might feel picked on." It is difficult to determine whether the writer agrees that the government is picking on the school district or whether the writer is simply expressing sympathy for the superintendent. Since the editorial itself does not directly state whether the government is picking on the district or not, we cannot say that the editorial takes that position in agreement with the superintendent. Thus, we're left with one statement. Let's see if it's one of the reasons:

    Conclusion: The federal government should not dictate athletics schedules
(BECAUSE) Reason: the superintendent felt the government is picking on the district.

Does this make sense? Yes. It is not our concern right now whether this is a good
reason or not. What is clear is that the statement is supposed to function as a reason:
it is used as a statement to persuade us to agree with the conclusion.

                                                Paragraph 5

Read the first sentence of this paragraph and test it by using the This-Because-of-That
structure:

     Conclusion: The federal government should not dictate athletics schedules
 (BECAUSE) Reason: The more students are involved in athletics, the more                                       competition there may someday be for "prime" days and times.

Does this make sense? Yes, but there is something indirect about the reason, something left unsaid. Let's assume for a moment that more students do get involved in athletics. What sort of situation would this create? More competition for prime days and times. But so what if there is more competition? Does competition make it more difficult to do something? What problem would more competition create? Only by reading the next sentence does it become clear what the writer means by bringing up the problem of more competition: "Certainly scheduling should be as fair as possible as the needs of students are balanced with the convenience of spectators...." Doesn't more competition for prime days and times make it more difficult to be fair to everyone in different sports? Yes. The more students there are in different sports, the more difficult it will be give each boy and girl sport an equal number of prime days and times. What is left unsaid with the problem of competition is the following: the problem of more competition introduces an additional criterion for scheduling which might conflict with fairness. This opens the door to the introduction of other criteria for scheduling sports events besides fairness such as the
convenience of spectators and the popularity of the particular sport for the ticket-buying public.
Here's what the argument structure for paragraph 5 looks like (on the next page):


Summary | Previous | Next | Editorial | Edit-Spotting Concl.| Edit-Spotting Reasons (1)(2)(3)


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Last revision: June 6,1998
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