PT134 · S3 · Q4 Journalist: A manufacturers' trade group

When Flaw answers start with takes for granted / presumes / fails to establish / fails to show / gives no reason to think that, the answer is trying to call out a Necessary Assumption. Did this argument need to assume that B.I. wants to belong to the trade group? No, it doesn't matter whether the group wants or doesn't want to belong to the group. This argument is only about establishing whether the group is / isn't currently a member of the group.

It's true, she didn't explain how they inadvertently sent out a secret doc, but that was background information. Authors don't have to defend or explain every claim they mention, just the conclusion. We're evaluating whether the supporting claims, if accepted as true, force us to believe the conclusion. The claims "list was inadvertently sent out", "if on list, then member of group", and "B.I. not on list" can all be accepted as true, and they don't force us to believe that "B.I. isn't a member of the group". Our answer is supposed to be addressing why those premises don't force us to believe that conclusion. This answer is complaining that the author never provided a backstory for one of the premises.

When Flaw answers start with takes for granted / presumes / fails to establish / fails to show / gives no reason to think that, the answer is trying to call out a Necessary Assumption. Did this argument need to assume that B.I. doesn't want it to be known that it's a member of the group? No. First of all, the author doesn't even think that B.I. is a member of the group, so that assumption would be nonsensical within the author's argument. Secondly, whether B.I. wants / doesn't want something is irrelevant to the issue we're analyzing, which is just is / isn't B.I. a member?

Was the argument assuming the accuracy of this representative's statement? Sure. The author was assuming it's true that "if listed in doc, then member of the group". Did the representative have a reason to withhold information? Eh, maybe. We know that the group has long kept its membership list secret, so that's probably fair. However, we'd only find this objectionable if the representative was saying something that hides the truth. Had the representative denied that companies on that list were members of the group and our author accepted this claim at face value, we'd probably be justified in thinking, "Whoa, author -- you know this rep has reason to withhold info from you, and you're just trusting him when he says that none of those companies on the list are part of his group?" But in this case, the rep is very forthcoming. If someone has reason to withhold information but provides information, that usually has a lot of credibility. If I have all the reason in the world to diminish Megan's job performance (because we're competing for the same promotion), then you'd be pretty skeptical if I said something negative about her. But if I say something positive, it would carry a lot of weight / credibility.