A Practice Passage: Policy

In practice

This practice passage is constructed for this course. A city council member writes: "Our city should charge a small fee for single-use plastic bags at grocery stores. Neighboring towns that adopted a fee report far fewer bags in their storm drains. Some residents worry the fee hurts families on tight budgets, but stores can offer free reusable bags to anyone who asks. A fee is a modest price for cleaner streets." Work through it in order. First, the main claim is the opening sentence: the city should charge a fee. The final sentence restates it as a judgment of value. Second, the evidence is a report from neighboring towns. It is relevant, because it concerns the same policy, but it is thin: the writer gives no source, no size of the change, and no sign that the towns resemble this city. A careful reader would want to know who reported the result and how it was measured. Third, the unstated assumption is that what worked in neighboring towns will work here, and that fewer bags in drains means cleaner streets in general. Both may be reasonable, but neither is argued. Fourth, the writer names a counterclaim, the cost to families, which is to the writer's credit, and answers it with free reusable bags. That answer would be stronger if the writer said who pays for them. Fifth, the appeal is mostly logical, with a light appeal to civic pride in cleaner streets; there is no obvious fallacy. The overall judgment: a fair, well-organized argument whose evidence is too thin for a skeptical reader.