[a习作temp] Argument40 [sjtu八勇士]第五次作业 [复制链接]

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发表于 2007-8-5 02:20:10 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

A40
The following appeared in a memorandum from the president of Excello Food Markets.
"In 90 towns where Excello has food markets, natural-food stores specializing in organic food products—products containing no chemical preservatives and made with foods grown without pesticides—have opened nearby as competitors. Surveys of our own customers reveal a growing concern about foods grown using pesticides or preserved with chemicals. Recently our market in Sun City participated in a local food tasting fair, and 75 percent of the fair goers who visited the Excello booth requested free samples of organic fruit. Such evidence indicates that to increase our profits, we should begin to stock a full line of organic food products in all our markets."

Outline:
1 the survey is not credible.
2 the fact 75% of fair goers request samples of organic fruit do nothing with the assumption.
3 stock the organic food products would not increase the profit, at least there are more competitors.

Text:
The arguer recommends that Excello Food Markets (Excello) should stock a full line of organic food products to increase the profits. To support this recommendation, the arguer cites these facts: (1) natural-food stores specializing in organic food products have opened in many towns; (2) Surveys in local city reveals a growing distrust of the ordinary food; (3) there was a high concern about green food, which grows without chemical preservatives or pesticides, in a tasting fair in Sun City. However, these facts cannot bolster the recommendation strongly, and thereby the recommendation is unconvincing.

Firstly, the survey of local customers, which serves as an evidence for a growing distrust of ordinary food, is incredible due to the lack of considerations of some important details in the survey. Perhaps the questions were leading or the survey relied on self reports, then the results might be unreliable -- people might just respond with the expected answer. To evaluate the evidence of survey, one must consider whether it was limited in certain ways. For example, were the survey respondents’ rich families? Was the survey limited to a certain strict in the city? Even if we can accept the survey as reliable, we cannot assume other cities have the similar situations. Perhaps in other cities, people pay little attention to the pesticides and chemical preservatives since the local laws forbids over amount chemical substance in farming. So, the evidence of survey does little to support the assumption that green food will be popular with the rising dissatisfaction with ordinary food.

In second place, the fact that a majority of the fair goers requested free samples of organic fruit cannot results in the assumption that green food will be popular. It's possible that the percentage of the people, who requested other samples, is much higher than 75 percent, or the market in Sun City prepared so good in the fair to attract most fair goers, but because of public focus on green food. Even assuming the organic fruits are popular in the fair, the argument provides no evidence to demonstrate more and more people will buy organic fruits. Perhaps these fruits are much more expensive than ordinary ones, which prevents the popularity in the market, or even the store supplying this kind of fruit is too remote to attract customers. In short, there are many other factors to determine the popularity of these fruits. Even if these fruits will sell well in Sun City, how can we believe the popularity of other organic food products, and how can we believe the situation in Sun City will appears in other cities?

Finally, even if we accept the popularity of organic food products nation widely, the arguer overlooks other important factors, which can result the profits' reduce. Just as the arguer points out, some stores specializing in organic food products have opened as competitors to Excello in many towns. The argument provides nothing to convince us Excello will defeat the other stores to obtain increasing profits. It's entirely possible that Excello performs worse than some other stores, and thereby the profits decrease instead of increase. Moreover, common sense tells us the abatement of profit-margin comes up with the augment of the supply of the products. So, Excello may obtain fewer profits.

In conclusion, the argument is not reassuring for the unreliability of the evidence of survey, the overlook of other factors and simplification of the relationship between profits' increase and popularity of products. To solidify this recommendation, the arguer must provide more dependable statistics evidence to substantiate that the organic food products will be popular and this popularity will benefit Excello increasing profits.