Analytical Writing Assessment: Practice 01 The following appeared in a memorandum from the business department of the Apogee Company: "When the Apogee Company had all its operations in one location, it was more profitable than it is today. Therefore, the Apogee Company should close down its field offices and conduct all its operations from a single location. Such centralization would improve profitability by cutting costs and helping the company maintain better supervision of all employees." Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion. My response: The author stated that the Apogee Company was more profitable when it operated in one location. Thus, the author concluded that the Apogee Company would make more profit by conduct all its operations from a single location. However, I don't think the author's argument is reasonably sound. First of all, the author failed to consider other factors that may influence the profit of the Apogee Company. In fact, the possible reasons that the Apogee Company made more profit in the past can be the good economic, cheap labor cost and less market competition. In addition, the past success can not guarantee the future success. Even if centralization actually counted for the better profitability in the past, it doesn’t mean that the Apogee Company will definitely make more profit by applying the same policy. Last and not least, without carefully evaluation, such centralization may even worsen profitability by increasing costs. For example, if the Apogee Company sells products all over the world, centralization would increase transportation costs. In conclusion, the author’s argument was lack of sufficient considerations, thus the expected result may not happen. The author should evaluate more carefully before he or she make the conclusion.