TOEFL iBT Independent Writing Imagine that a company has announced plans to build a large factory in your community. Would you support this addition to your community? - revised -

Imagine that a company has announced plans to build a large factory in your community. Would you support this addition to your community?

☆Let’s Think

1       What are the merits and demerits of building a factory in general?

2       Are there any conditions of your community to welcome or reject a new factory?

3       Are there any counter arguments against the opinion that a new factory will increase employment?

4       Are there any counter arguments against the opinion that a new factory will have a negative effect on the environment?

Note: Let’s deal with counterarguments. When you think of a counterargument, take it up, and deal with it by, for example, proving the counter argument does not matter so much or showing that there is a solution.

☆Hints for Points

◍merits and demerits of building a factory in general

advantages: It will stimulate the local economy. / The employment will improve. / The municipal government will benefit from the tax revenue increase.

disadvantages: air/water/noise pollution / Transportation will be crowded. / There might be conflicts between old and new residents

◍conditions of your community

old residential area → The health of children and might be senior citizens adversely affected.

already full of factories  → more demerits than merits

☆Counterarguments and counter-counterarguments

◍The employment will improve.

Counterargument: Corporations employ dispatched workers, who are already trained to do the tasks and do not cost much, or use robots.

Counter-counterargument: The community leaders can organize themselves to make sure that the factory will give priority to hiring residents in the area before the construction starts.

◍effect on the environment (pollution, CO2 emissions, habitat loss, etc.)

Counterargument: New technology will reduce the impact on the environment.

Counter-counterargument: A corporation will do anything for profits. It will not seriously take measures to protect the environment. Once the damage is done, the community will never be the same.

☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions

I would welcome the factory if it is run by a new type of company but strongly reject it if it is owned by the conventional corporation. Although it would seemingly benefit my town mainly because of job creation, a factory owned by the corporation would eventually bring unhappiness to the community.

In the long run, a corporate-owned factory would harm my community and the environment. By law, a corporation is only responsible to its shareholders, not to the community, and much less to the environment. If calculation shows that it can still make profits even if it has to pay compensation for the damage caused by the production or the products, the corporation just makes the product. As we have seen, factories have polluted the air, water, and soil, and many people have suffered due to defective products.

Outsourcing is another practice to worry about. If the factory is successful, the company wants to expand and it will close the factory to build some in overseas countries where cheap labor forces are available. If this happens, not to speak of the plight of the people who are exploited there in the third world, my town will be full of the unemployed. This has happened in America over the last 20 years. The result is a lot of ghost towns and the crushed middle class. Tight economy and harsh global market competition, plus very expensive personnel costs of my country Japan, can transform even a paternalistic Japanese company into a ruthless, money-hungry machine. It is sensible to suspect the possibility of future offshoring of the factory.

Moreover, the corporation could close even a most productive factory for profits. For example, if the product the factory turns out is abundant in the market, the company could stop manufacturing it to prevent its price from falling down, just as extra crops such as oranges are discarded to manipulate the market prices, when many people are starving, as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath half a century ago and is being done right at this moment somewhere on this planet.

A new type of company that I would be pleased to invite to my town is one of employee ownership. I myself have no desire to own a company, but, in theory, I think this system will make our lives better. Employee ownership allows all employees literally participate in policy making. This would drive the factory to the right direction even though the majority is not always right. For instance, considering most ordinary citizens are concerned about environmental issues while many large companies are still denying the global warming theory for fear of loss caused by policy change, a company where decisions are made by workers’ majority vote is likely to emit minimum amount of CO2 and easy on the environment in general. Needless to say, the pay gap between the officials and the rank-and-files would be smaller because everyone is the owner of the company. This kind of company is established by people who have values far from money-and-power orientation and therefore, my town would be livelier with people respecting and supporting each other.

A company as a tool for extra-income of a few super-rich people is not welcome, while a company of the ordinary people, by the ordinary people, for the ordinary people is a great welcome. Increase of factories operated by this type of companies would drastically change society.

☆Sample Essay Structures

A      【Introduction = Outline】

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Counterargument-treatment】*

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

B      【Introduction = Outline】

【Good Points】

【Bad Points】

【Conditions of My Community】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

*Why good points are not attractive / Why bad points do not matter

Your Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】

【                     】

【                     】

【                     】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】