Spring 2017

Course Critical Thinking Course Code HUM1002

and Problem Solving
Deadline: 20 April 2017

ASSIGNMENT (2)

Task:

1. Read the following 2 article. Evaluate the arguments on both

sides. Who has the stronger arguments, and why?
2. Identify rhetorical devices (rhetorical devices: use of
language that is intended to have an effect on its audience)
and determine which author relies more heavily on them.
3. In the first essay, find as many arguments as you can that
can be treated as categorical syllogisms. Then state whether
each syllogism is valid, identifying rules broken by any
syllogisms that are not.

The total no. of words: between 500-750.

POLICIES: SUC policies related to Plagiarism and Late submission
shall apply.

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 Make Fast Food Smoke-Free

USA Today

Our view: The only thing smoking in fast-food restaurants should

be the speed of the service.

Starting in June, if you go to Arbys, you may get more than a break from
burgers. You could get a break from tobacco smoke, too.

The roast-beef-sandwich chain on Tuesday moved to the head of a

stampede by fast-food restaurants to limit smoking. Last year, McDonalds
began experimenting with 40 smokeless restaurants. Wendys and other
fast-food chains also have restaurants that bar smoking. But Arbys is the
first major chain to heed a call from an 18-member state attorneys
general task force for a comprehensive smoking ban in fast-food
restaurants. It will bar smoking in all its 257 corporate-owned restaurants
and urge its 500 franchisees to do the same in their 2,000 restaurants.

Other restaurants, and not just the fast-food places, should fall in line. The
reason is simple: Smoke in restaurants is twice as bad as in a smokers
home or most other workplaces, a recent report to the Journal of the
American Medical Association found.

Fast-food restaurants have an even greater need to clear the air. A quarter
of their customers and 40% of their workers are under 18. Secondhand
smoke is a class A carcinogen. It is blamed for killing an estimated 44,000
people a year. And its toxins especially threaten youngsters health.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that secondhand smoke

causes up to 1 million asthma attacks and 300,000 respiratory infections
that lead to 15,000 hospitalizations among children each year. All
restaurants should protect their workers and customers. If they wont,
then local and state governments should do so by banning smoking in
them, as Los Angeles has.

A persons right to a quick cigarette ends when it threatens the health of

innocent bystanders, and even more so when many of them are

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 youngsters. They deserve a real breaka meal in a smoke-free
environment that doesnt threaten their health.

Dont Overreact to Smoke

Brennan M. Dawson

Opposing view: With non-smoking sections available and visits

brief, whats the problem?

If the attorneys general from a handful of statesthose charged with

upholding the lawwere to hold a forum in Washington, you might expect
them to be tackling what polls say is the No. 1 public issue: crime.

Not these folks. Theyre worried someone might be smoking in the

smoking section of a fast-food restaurant. And, there might be children in
the nonsmoking section. Thus, they say, fast-food chains should ban all
smoking.

Some would argue that this raises serious questions about priorities. But it
may be worth debating, since this is supposed to be about protecting
children.

Everyone is (and should be) concerned with childrens health and well-
being.

But what are we protecting them fromthe potential that a whiff of smoke
may drift from the smoking section to the non-smoking section during the
average 20-minute visit for a quick burger?

Anyone knowledgeable would tell you that none of the available studies
can reasonably be interpreted to suggest that incidental exposure of a
child to smoking in public places such as restaurants is a problem. After
all, with the almost universal availability of non-smoking sections, parents
have the option of keeping their kids out of the smoking section.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health reported

that the separate smoking sections in restaurants do a good job of

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 minimizing exposure to tobacco smoke. According to the figures cited,
customers would have to spend about 800 consecutive hours in the
restaurants to be exposed to the nicotine equivalent of one cigarette.

That would represent about 2,400 fast-food meals. Under those

conditions, most parents would worry about something other than
smoking.

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