Self-study
A significant amount of the acquisition budget of a typical university library is spent on subscriptions to scholarly journals. ████ ███ ████ ███████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████████████ ████ █ ███████ ████ ███ ████ █ ███████ ███ █████████ █████████████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ █ █████████ ███████ ████ ████████ ██████ █████████ ██████████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████ █ █████████ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ████
Summarize Argument
The author argues that publishing scholarly journals is likely much more profitable now than in the past. She supports this by pointing out that university libraries are paying much higher subscription rates, while the costs of publishing remain the same.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that publishers’ overall profits have increased just because one subset of their consumers are paying more. She ignores the possibility that other streams of revenue have remained unchanged or have decreased, that there may be other unaddressed costs to publishers, or that overall profits are the same or lower now than in the past.
8.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Many university libraries ████ █████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ██████ █████ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ███████████ ██ █ ███ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██████
(A) tells us what libraries are doing in response to increased costs, but we are concerned with the profits of publishing companies, not libraries. We thus need an answer choice that weakens the argument by highlighting publishers’ other costs or streams of revenue.
b
A university library's ███████████ ██████ ███████ ██████████ ████ █ █████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ███████
Like (A), this is discussing the budget and costs of university libraries, rather than publishing companies. We need an answer that points out some other cost or stream of revenue that outweighs the profits made from increased university library rates.
c
Publishing a scholarly ███████ ██ ██ █████████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ████████ ██████ ███████ ███████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ████ ██████
We know publishing costs have remained constant, so (C) doesn’t weaken the conclusion that publishers’ profits have increased due to increased subscription rates for university libraries. Instead, we need something that might outweigh the extra profit from those increased rates.
d
Most subscribers to █████████ ████████ ███ ████████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ ████████████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████ █████████ ████████ █████████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ██████
This shows that the effects of other streams of revenue may outweigh increased profits from university library subscriptions. Since most subscribers are individuals with unchanged rates, publishing a scholarly journal may not be much more profitable now than it was years ago.
e
The majority of █████████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █████ █ █████
Regardless of the frequency of publications, we know that university library subscription rates have gone up while publishing costs have not. To weaken the argument, we need to show that the extra profits from these libraries might not be enough to boost overall profits.