1. (1) There is a lot of pressure on untenured college teachers to dumb down their courses. (2) Administrators tend to rehire teachers who bring in more money, and (3) teachers who dumb down their classes do precisely this. Why? Because (4) easier classes attract more students, and (5) more students means more money for the school.
2. (1) The use of ethanol as an additive in gasoline is really a bad idea. (2) Ethanol is produced from corn, and (3) when 40 percent of the annual corn crop is burned up in car engines, that obviously raises the price of corn for food. (4) Also, adding ethanol to gasoline is highly inefficient. (5) Ethanol yields about 30 percent less energy than gasoline, and (6) it's more expensive to transport and handle than gasoline.
3. (1) Unscrupulous for-profit colleges are not only cheating their students but (2) they are also ripping off the American taxpayer to the tune of billions of dollars. (3) Ninety-six percent of the students who attend these colleges are forced to take out loans. (4) Most of these students leave without degrees. (5) And the students then default on their loans, leaving a $32 billion annual debt to the taxpayer.
The following arguments were abstracted from newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to the editor. Use the method presented in this section to construct argument patterns. If a statement is redundant or plays no role in the argument, do not include it in the pattern.