#3
1. Las Vegas has too many people.
2. There's not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people.
3. And the infrastructure of the city can't handle more than a million: The streets are overcrowded, and traffic is always congested; the schools are overcrowded, and new ones can't be built fast enough.
4. We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and county.
Argument?: Yes (3).
Conclusion: We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and county.
Additional premises needed?: (2) It's exaggerated a little -- There aren't exactly a million people who live in Las Vegas.
Subarguments: 1,2,3 support the conclusion, 7.
Good argument?: The premises are plausible. I think more supporting details should be added into the paragraph; otherwise, this is a somewhat good argument.
I think this was a very useful exercise because by analyzing the paragraph, it helped me understand how to determine what kind of arguments are good and to identify conclusions.
This is overall a good argument but I agree they need to add more supporting details to make the argument more sufficient. 1, 2, and 3 are independent and does support 4. I felt that this is a good exercise as well because it helped in letting us break down parts of a statement and being able to fully analyze the statement to understand the concept better. I also agree that they exaggerated a little bit because statistically speaking Las Vegas population is far below a million, but however a million people can visit it making it overcrowded at some times.
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