11.       
The recommendation endorsed in this argument is that residents of San Perdito vote current mayor Montoya out of office, and re-elect former mayor Varro. The reasons cited are that during Montoya's four years in office the population has decreased while unemployment has increased, whereas during Varro's term unemployment declined while the population grew. This argument involves the sort of gross oversimplification and emotional appeal typical of political rhetoric; for this reason it is unconvincing.

First of all, the author assumes that the Montoya administration caused the unemployment in San Perdito as well as its population loss. The line of reasoning is that because Montoya was elected before the rise in unemployment and the decline in population, the former event caused the latter. But this is fallacious reasoning unless other possible causal explanations have been considered and ruled out. For example, perhaps a statewide or nationwide recession is the cause of these events. Or perhaps the current economic downturn is part of a larger picture of economic cycles and trends, and has nothing to do with who happens to be mayor. Yet another possibility is that Varro enjoyed a period of economic stability and Varro's own administration set the stage for the unemployment and the decline in population the city is now experiencing under Montoya.

Secondly, job availability and the economic health of one's community are issues that affect people emotionally. The argument at hand might have been intentionally oversimplified for the specific purpose of angering citizens of San Perdito, and thereby turning them against the incumbent mayor. Arguments that bypass relevant, complex reasoning in favor of stirring up emotions do nothing to establish their conclusions; they are also unfair to the parties involved.

      In conclusion, I would not cast my vote for Varro on the basis of this weak argument. The author must provide support for the assumption that Mayor Montoya has caused San Perdito's poor economy. Moreover, such support would have to involve examining and eliminating other possible causal factors. Only with more convincing evidence could this argument become more than just an emotional appeal.
12.
The conclusion of this argument is that advertising the reduced price of selected items in the Daily Gazette will result in increased sales overall. To support it, the author cites an informal poll conducted by sales clerks when customers purchased advertised items. Each time one or more of the advertised items was sold, the clerks asked whether the customer had read the ad. It turned out that two-thirds of 200 shoppers questioned said that they had read the ad. In addition, of those who reported reading the ad, more than half spent over $100 in the store. This argument is unconvincing for two reasons.

      To begin with, the author's line of reasoning is that the advertisement was the cause of the purchase of the sale items. However, while the poll establishes a ion between reading the ad and purchasing sale items, and also indicates a correlation, though less significantly, between reading the ad and buying non-sale t does not establish a general causal relationship between these events. To establish this relationship, other factors that could bring about this result must be 'red and eliminated. For example, if the four days during which the poll was conducted preceded Thanksgiving and the advertised items were traditionally associated with this holiday, then the results of the poll would be extremely biased and unreliable.

      Moreover, the author assumes that the poll indicates that advertising certain sale will cause a general increase in sales. But the poll does not even address the issue of increased overall sales; it informs us mainly that, of the people who purchased sales items, more had read the ad than not. A much clearer indicator of the ad's effectiveness would be a comparison of overall sales on days the ad ran with overall sales on otherwise similar days when the ad did not run.
    
In sum, this argument is defective mainly because the poll does not support the conclusion that sales in general will increase when reduced-price products are advertised in the Daily Gazette. To strengthen the argument, the author must, at the very least, provide comparisons of overall sales reports as described above.