Self-study
Letter to the Editor: Conclusion The arts section of this paper shows a lamentable bias toward movies and against local theatrical productions. ████ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that the arts section of the paper is biased toward movies and against local theater. This is based on the fact that in the last year, the paper has published over five times as many movie reviews are review of live plays.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there’s no other explanation for why the paper published over five times as many movie reviews as reviews of live plays besides bias. The author also assumes that the number of reviews about live plays is representative of the number of reviews of local theatrical productions. (This overlooks the possibility that the paper might have reviewed a lot of other local theatrical productions that weren’t classified as live plays.)
3.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████
a
Some newspapers do ███ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ██████
We’re talking about a particular newspaper that does publish reviews of plays. Whether other newspapers are biased or not biased or whether they publish play reviews or not has no impact on whether this newspaper is biased.
b
The number of ██████ ████████ ████ ████ ███ █████████████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████ █████████ ████████
This provides a potential alternate explanation for the disparity in publication of movie and play reviews. If there were a lot more movies, we’d expect a lot more movie reviews, even if there was no bias toward or against movies or plays.
c
The newspaper has ████ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ███████
If anything, this could support the theory of bias. Perhaps the reason the newspaper has more movie critics is because they prefer publishing reviews of movies over reviews of plays.
d
The newspaper does ███ ████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███████ █ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████████
The author never suggested that the newspaper could publish a review of every movie or local play. The author’s simply pointing to the disparity in number of movie and play reviews.
e
The newspaper published ████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ █████ ████
We care about the comparison between movie reviews and play reviews. More play reviews last year compared to the past might suggest the newspaper has gotten less biased against plays; but that doesn’t relate to whether the newspaper is more biased toward movies than plays.