The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment building to its manager.
"One month ago, all the showerheads on the first five floors of Sunnyside Towers were modified to restrict the water flow to approximately one-third of its original flow. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, restricting water flow throughout all the twenty floors of Sunnyside Towers will increase our profits further."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.


The author concludes that reducing the water flow of the Sunnyside Towers of all the twenty floors would increase the marginal profits. The argument contains a lot of weak assumptions and flaws and therefore it's not cogent. A few of the flaws are mentioned below.

To begin with, the showerheads of the first five floors of the Sunnyside Towers were modified to one-third of the water flow. The author mentions that the readings for the comparison between the before and after adjustments are not available. The author assumes that it will surely result in savings. The assumption is flawed as the residents can be using more amount of water to compensate for the reduced water flow. So, it may not exactly result in a profit as suggested by the author.

Secondly, the author states that except for a few complaints regarding the low water pressure, no other complaints have been made. This is a statistically weak argument as the author did not specify the exact number of people who have made the complaint. The complaints might be coming from the people who have noticed it. There may be owners who are away on vacation who have not used the shower.
Lastly, the author asserts that the same should be done for all the twenty floors and that will, in turn, increase the profits. This is again a weak assumption as there could be an increase in the number of complaints from the owners. Again, the author doesn’t provide relevant data as to how the profits will increase if the water pressure is reduced.

To conclude, the author’s argument can be strengthened by providing the actual readings. The author should also specify the data to show the result of the profit being made after reducing the pressure. A complete survey of the apartment should be done to take feedback from the owners also. Hence, the owner should keep the above points in mind before jumping to conclusions.