The situation described in this editorial is trying. Students were upset that regulations were about to change their way life.

Michael had studied the fallacies of logic and knew they were to be avoided in a reasoned, persuasive piece. He also knew what he thought about the situations and attitudes that were being expressed by administration and students. Using fallacies of logic such as sweeping generalizations, false analogy and slippery slope just might make people laugh and look at the dire circumstances in a new perspective.

How many fallacies of logic can you identify in this editorial?

The Jefferson administration announced recently that certain snack and beverage machines will soon be off-limits to students during school hours. The restrictions will occur, apparently, so Jefferson can comply with state-mandated nutritional guidelines. Unfortunately, submitting to the state-and ending the free market for consumables-will result in the ruination of Jefferson.

The first consequence of the administration's folly is that students will be extremely hungry-constantly. Hungry students cannot think and cannot learn like well-fed, fat students can. The outstanding test scores that have made Jefferson nationally famous will likely decline to well below the state average. The same community members, world leaders, and college entrance officials who now regard Jefferson as the world's finest academic institution will direct bitter laughter at this school of wretched, starving children. As the saying goes, "Give me a fish and I eat for a day; give me a snack machine and I win Intel Science Talent Search and get a 1580 on the SATs."

No one in the history of the world has ever starved to death. When the human body gets really, really hungry, it begins to eat whatever it can find inside the body-including the immune system and vital organs. This digestion of the body's most essential components results in a slow, painful death. With the removal of snack and beverage machines, the finest Jefferson students will be uncontrollably self-cannibalized throughout each and every grueling day. Surely this is not beneficial. Of course, students may try to save themselves by buying "lunch" from the cafeteria. Fools! Any reasonable person knows it takes several weeks of careful conditioning to cafeteria food to develop immunity to the mold and decaying parasite excrement. One can only imagine hundreds of hunger-blind students, ravaging their filthy food trays, only to be eaten alive during the next class by pernicious microorganisms.

The end of snack and beverage machines is the end of Jefferson. This school will first plummet academically; then it will lose much of the student body to disease and malnutrition. Students must endeavor to save the snack and beverage machines-and their lives-before it is too late.