The following arguments gradually increase in difficulty. 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.

★1. 1 Many people believe that the crime of bribery cannot extend to campaign contributions. 2 From a legal standpoint, however, countless campaign contributions are in fact bribes. 3 A bribe is anything of value or advantage given with the intent to unlawfully influence the person to whom it is given in his official capacity. 4 A campaign contribution is certainly something of value or advantage. Furthermore, 5 every contribution from a lobbyist or special interest group is given with the intent to influence voting, and 6 thousands of such contributions are made in every important election.

(Daniel Hays Lowenstein, “Can Candidates Run for Political Office Without Taking Bribes?”)

2. 1 America’s farm policy desperately needs revamping. 2 Seventy-three cents of every farm program dollar ends up in the pockets of the nation’s superfarmers.

As a result, 3 the mid-sized family farms are being squeezed out of existence. Also, 4 our farm policy courts environmental disaster. 5 Federal subsidies encourage farmers to use enormous amounts of fertilizer and pesticides.

6 These chemicals percolate down through the soil and pollute limited groundwater.

(Osha Gray Davidson, “Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto”)

3. 1 Society values white lives more than black lives. This is clear from the fact that 2 killers of whites are much more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of blacks. 3 Of the 1,788 people currently on death row, 1,713 were convicted of killing a white person. Yet 4 blacks are six times more likely to be murder victims than whites are. 5 In Florida, no one has ever been executed for murdering a black person, but 6 dozens have been executed for murdering white people.

(Los Angeles Times editorial, “Death and Race”)

★4. 1 Powerful new particle accelerators are important in high-energy physics, and 2 they are worth their cost because 3 they will allow scientists to produce and capture significant quantities of Z particles. 4 Z particles result from the collision of positrons and electrons, and 5 particle accelerators are needed to achieve significant numbers of these collisions. 6 Z particles are thought to be the bearers of the weak nuclear force, and 7 learning the nature of this force may lead to the development of entirely new sources of energy.

(Lee Dye, “Linear Collider: Bold Gamble in Atomic Physics”)

5. 1 Although Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to the foundation of the country were profound, 2 as the master of Monticello, Jefferson was a monster.

3 Simultaneously with his writing the Declaration of Independence, which announced the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, he owned 175 slaves. 4 Clearly the man was a creepy hypocrite. 5 But Jefferson was 1 also cruel. 6 He sometimes punished slaves by selling them away from their family and friends, and 7 for slaves and free blacks who ran afoul of the law, he advocated harsh, almost barbaric forms of punishment.

(Paul Finkelman, “The Monster of Monticello”)

6. 1 All men crave material success because 2 it serves as an insurance policy against sexual rejection. This is true because 3 women love men who are successful. 4 Both men and women want power, and 5 success is the form of power women feel most deprived of. Thus, 6 women try to achieve it vicariously through men. 7 As the 5-foot 6-inch Dustin Hoffman once put it,

“When I was in high school, women wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole.

Now I can’t keep them away with a 10-foot pole.”

( Warren Farrell, “Success Story: From Frog to Prince”)

★7. 1 Cigarette consumption could be easily reduced by simply outlawing tailor-made cigarettes. 2 The manufacture of tailor-made cigarettes to American standards is a high-tech industry. 3 It cannot be done in small illicit labs like the processing of PCP, cocaine or heroin. 4 The availability of quality tobacco for hand-rolling would discourage the development of an illegal tailor-made market. 5 Most people would not pay the premium prices demanded by an illicit market for a product of unknown quality. 6 They could roll a high-

quality product for themselves. 7 Truly addicted persons would continue to smoke no matter how inconvenient. But 8 most would give it up as too much bother before it became a deeply ingrained habit.

(Richard Sand, “An Easy Way to Reduce Cigarette Consumption”)

8. 1 Flesh food is not a necessity in the human diet, as 2 nutritionally adequate alternatives are readily available. 3 Many people in the world thrive on a nonmeat diet. 4 Indeed, vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists in this country live an average of six years longer than their meat-eating counterparts.

5 The National Academy of Science warns that our fat-laden diet is directly responsible for much of the heart disease and cancer that afflict so many.

6 At a time when people are starving in certain parts of the world, it should be noted that a steer must consume sixteen pounds of grain and soy to produce one pound of meat. 7 The grain and soybeans we feed our meat-producing animals would feed every hungry mouth in the world many times over.

8 Cattle are competing with humans for food. 9 Clearly, a reassessment of the whole concept of killing and eating animals is in order.

(Suzanne Sutton, “Killing Animals for Food—Time for a Second Look”)

9. 1 The argument has been made that to cut down on teenage drunk driving we should increase the federal excise tax on beer. 2 Such a measure, however, would almost certainly fail to achieve its intended result. 3 Teenagers are notoriously insensitive to cost. 4 They gladly accept premium prices for the latest style in clothes or the most popular record albums. And then, 5 those who drink and drive already risk arrest and loss of driving privileges. 6 They would not think twice about paying a little more for a six-pack. Finally, 7 the situation is not as bleak as it has been made to appear. 8 The fatality rate for teenage drivers is lower today than it has been in years.

( James C. Sanders, “Increased U.S. Tax on Beer”)

★10. 1 It has been widely acknowledged that the quality of undergraduate education in this country is diminishing. 2 An often unrecognized cause of this malady is the exploitative way that universities as employers treat their part-time and temporary faculty members. 3 In many universities there are no formal guidelines for evaluating the work of these instructors. As a result, 4 poor instructors who solicit the favor of the department chairman are often retained over better ones who do not. 5 Another factor is the low pay given to these instructors. 6 In order to survive, many of them must accept heavy teaching loads spread out over three or four institutions. 7 The quality of instruction can only suffer when faculty members stretch themselves so thin.

Lastly, because 8 part-time and temporary faculty are rarely members of the faculty senate, 9 they have no voice in university governance. But 10 without a voice, the shoddy conditions under which they work are never brought to light.

(Michael Schwalbe, “Part-Time Faculty Members Deserve a Break”)

11. 1 Doctors who attend elderly people in nursing homes often prescribe tranquilizers to keep these people immobile. 2 This practice is often unwarranted, and 3 it often impairs the health of the patients. 4 These tranquilizers often have damaging side effects in that 5 they accentuate the symptoms of senility, and 6 they increase the likelihood of a dangerous fall because 7 they produce unsteadiness in walking. Furthermore, since 8 these medications produce immobility, 9 they increase the risk of bedsores. 10 Doctors at the Center for Aging and Health say that physicians who care for the elderly are simply prescribing too much medication.

(Hal Willard, “At 90, the Zombie Shuffle”)

12. 1 All of us have encountered motorists who will go to any length to get a parking spot within 20 feet of the door they expect to enter. 2 This obsession with good parking spots transcends all logic. 3 It might take 5 minutes to secure the ideal spot in a store parking lot, 4 while a more distant spot that is immediately available is only a 40-second walk from the door. 5 Waiting for that ideal spot also results in frenzied nerves and skyrocketing blood pressure.

6 Inevitably the occupant of the desired space will preen her hair before departing, and 7 all the while the cars backed up behind the waiting driver are blaring their horns. 8 Parking a little farther away is usually easier and safer because 9 you can pull out more quickly, and 10 it avoids damage to car doors by adjacent parkers.

(Gwinn Owens, “A Ridiculous Addiction”)

★13. 1 The state has a right to intervene on behalf of unborn children, and 2 this right should be implemented immediately. 3 While it may be true that a mere fetus has no rights, 4 surely a born child does have rights, and 5 these rights project backward to the time it was in the womb. This is true because 6 what happens to the child in the womb can have an impact throughout the child’s life. 7 It is well known that alcohol and drug abuse by expectant mothers cause 1 birth defects, and 8 these defects are not correctable after birth. 9 Granted, an expectant mother has the right to treat her own body as she chooses, but 10 this right does not extend to her unborn child. 11 Once a pregnant woman decides to give birth, she effectively transfers part of her rights over to her unborn child. 12 Unfortunately, however, the unborn child is incapable of securing these rights for itself. Thus, 13 the intervention of a higher power is justified.

(Alan Dershowitz, “Drawing the Line on Prenatal Rights”)

14. 1 A manned trip to Mars is a justified scientific goal because 2 it affords a unique opportunity to explore the origins of the solar system and the emergence of life. However, 3 from a scientific standpoint, an initial landing on the tiny Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, would be more rewarding than a landing on the planet itself. Because 4 the Martian terrain is rugged, 5 humans would not be able to venture far, 6 nor could they operate a robot vehicle for great distances, since 7 Mars’s mountains would block their view.

8 Explorers on Phobos and Deimos could easily send robot vehicles to the planet’s surface. 9 Using Mars’s moons as a base would also be better than unmanned exploration directed from the Houston space center. Because 10 the distance is so great, 11 radio signals to and from Mars can take as long as an hour. Thus, 12 driving an unmanned rover from Earth, step by step, would be a time-consuming operation. 13 Sample returns to Earth would take months instead of hours, and 14 follow-on missions would be years apart instead of days, further slowing the process of exploration.

(S. Fred Singer, “The Case for Going to Mars”)

15. 1 A small group of people still believe in nuclear weapons, but 2 the facts dictate that nuclear weapons not only should be eliminated but 3 they can be eliminated. 4 The opposing arguments are that nuclear weapons hastened the end of World War II, they deter nations from going to war, they have kept the peace, and nuclear technology is irreversible. But 5 nuclear weapons did not persuade the Japanese to surrender. 6 New research shows that the real reason Japan surrendered is because the Soviets renounced neutrality and entered the war. And 7 before losing two cities to nuclear weapons, Japan had already lost sixty-six to conventional weapons. 8 Two more made little difference.

Also, 9 history shows that nuclear weapons are ineffective as a deterrent.

10 They did not deter the U.S. during the Cuban missile crisis, and 11 they did not deter Argentina in the conflict with Britain over the Falklands. Furthermore, 12 there is no good reason to think that nuclear weapons cause peace.

13 Peace means the absence of war, but 14 the absence of something can be explained in countless ways. Lastly, 15 the argument that you can’t stuff the nuclear genie back in the bottle is specious. 16 The question is not whether nuclear weapons can be disinvented but whether they are useful. 17 This is doubtful given that 18 not one has been used since 1945 and 19 the trend in modern warfare is toward smaller, more effective precision-guided weapons.

20 Banning nuclear weapons will not be easy, but 21 the existing ban on chemical and biological weapons shows that it can be done.