Q16 - Literary critic: Often the heirs

[LSAT-Chang]

Could someone explain to me why (B) is wrong and why (C) is correct??

[demetri.blaisdell]

Tough problem, thanks for posting your question. Here's my diagram of the argument core:

Heirs often publish works writers don't want published after they are dead ---> Authors who decide not to publish something should destroy it immediately

The problematic term shift here relates to time. If authors don't want something published when they are dead, does it necessarily follow that they should destroy things they decide not to publish immediately? What if Tolstoy had finished War & Peace and decided he didn't like it (because he was in a bad mood after his dog died). It would have been quite a literary loss if he had destroyed it on the spot. (C) addresses this gap by negating the assumption of the argument, that authors are able to properly judge the quality of their work right after they finish it. The correct answer choice for weaken questions will often negate an assumption made by the argument, so this is what we'd expect.

(A) is out of scope. The argument is about what successful writers should do with their manuscripts. We don't know what unpopular writers should or shouldn't do.

(B) is a premise booster. We already know that the heirs will publish personal correspondence of famous authors.

(D) is tempting but out of scope. We aren't told what the author thinks about these books. Maybe these are the manuscripts that the authors were working on when they died (and don't mind someone publishing). There is also a term shift from "manuscripts and correspondence" in the argument core to "books" in the answer choice. Finally, the fact that many books would have been published by the authors does not preclude there being many many more (even a huge majority) being published that the authors never would have wanted to see the light of day.

(E) may actually strengthen the argument. If the heirs are lousy judges of quality that might lend support to the idea that authors should destroy the works they don't want published.

I hope this clears up your confusion. Let me know if you need any more help with this question.

Demetri

[LSAT-Chang]

Tough problem, thanks for posting your question. Here's my diagram of the argument core:

Heirs often publish works writers don't want published after they are dead ---> Authors who decide not to publish something should destroy it immediately

The problematic term shift here relates to time. If authors don't want something published when they are dead, does it necessarily follow that they should destroy things they decide not to publish immediately? What if Tolstoy had finished War & Peace and decided he didn't like it (because he was in a bad mood after his dog died). It would have been quite a literary loss if he had destroyed it on the spot. (C) addresses this gap by negating the assumption of the argument, that authors are able to properly judge the quality of their work right after they finish it. The correct answer choice for weaken questions will often negate an assumption made by the argument, so this is what we'd expect.

(A) is out of scope. The argument is about what successful writers should do with their manuscripts. We don't know what unpopular writers should or shouldn't do.

(B) is a premise booster. We already know that the heirs will publish personal correspondence of famous authors.

(D) is tempting but out of scope. We aren't told what the author thinks about these books. Maybe these are the manuscripts that the authors were working on when they died (and don't mind someone publishing). There is also a term shift from "manuscripts and correspondence" in the argument core to "books" in the answer choice. Finally, the fact that many books would have been published by the authors does not preclude there being many many more (even a huge majority) being published that the authors never would have wanted to see the light of day.

(E) may actually strengthen the argument. If the heirs are lousy judges of quality that might lend support to the idea that authors should destroy the works they don't want published.

I hope this clears up your confusion. Let me know if you need any more help with this question.

Demetri

Thanks Demetri!
I finally understood it. I never realized it was about "time" until you pointed that out for me. Now it makes perfect sense and I see the gap. Thank you!!

[griffin.811]

Having a tough go of it with this one. I used process of elimination to arrive at C, but can't quite grasp this "time shift" concept.

Lets say an writer finishes a manuscript, and decides he wouldn't want to be associated with it. Is the idea here that he need not destroy it immediately, but maybe he can destroy it a few days later (presuming he is still alive, and after he has used that original manuscript to draft another he is happy with?)

Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I think you're 95% there. Of course, I would probably grant the hypothetical author more than just a few more days of life to consider revising his/her work.

One way we might refashion the question stem is "What's wrong with this advice?"

The advice was:
Hey, successful writers, if you finish a manuscript but decide not to publish it, you should immediately destroy it.
(Ouch. That seems harsh.)
Why?
Because otherwise your heirs might publish your potentially embarrassingly bad work after you die. After all, heirs are often bad judges of the merit of the work.

Okay, makes some sense. Writers naturally want to publish the stuff they're proud of / not publish the stuff they're not proud of.

So how could this advice backfire?

(C) is saying that most writers are overly harsh when reflecting on their recent manuscript. So they might read it, think to themselves "This is garbage", and then, following this advice, destroy the manuscript immediately.

The problem is that the work they just read might actually be very good. So they would be destroying a really good manuscript. It turns out, according to (C), that writers are bad judges of the merit of their recently completed work, just as heirs might be bad judges of the merit of the writer's remaining letters/manuscripts.

We don't want bad judges making decisions.

(C) is saying that when writers read that same manuscript a month, a year, a decade later ... they revise their initial assessment of their work and think, "This is gold!"

So if these writers followed the advice, they would end up trashing a lot of quality work.

True, it would keep their heirs from publishing potentially bad works. But it would also keep them from publishing potentially good works. That how the advice backfires.

Let me know if you're still unclear.

[griffin.811]

Perfect explanation! Thanks. And I guess we can let the writers live a bit longer...

Thanks again!