Argument 137 谢谢大家了~

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明年6月的笔试，今年10.16号的机考，迫在眉睫了，这是第一篇，望大家茶余饭后之时权当娱乐，一顿板砖袭来，不胜感激！
TOPIC: ARGUMENT137 - The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."
WORDS: 456


In this argument, the arguer draw a conclusion that the Mason City should spend more money on improving the publicly owned lands along the Mason River and it is to increase the recreational use of the river. To support this conclusion, the arguer points that fewer Mason City residents use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity because they think that the river is not clean enough for them to do activities, even though the residents consistently rank water sports such as swimming, fishing, and boating as a favorite form of recreation according to surveys. What is more, the arguer predict that the situation of the river is about to change, for the agency responsible for rivers in their region has announced plans to clean up Mason River.

The argument rests on the gratuitous assumption that, the agency which in the charge of the rivers in the region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. But the agency does not give the clear time when will launch this project to make the Mason River clean, and how long will it lasts. These questions, the arguer does not take into account. In addition, the local residents will care more about how clear will the river be. Maybe after the project, the river is more clear than it was, but it is still full of smell, rubbish, dead fish. The resident will do not believe in the agency any more.

The arguer fails to consider other possible reasons why the residents seldom use the river for each kinds of recreational activities. For instance, maybe the climate at present is coldest of the year, the resident does not like to go outsides for fun, or deep ice covers the river. What else, maybe a new drama is on show on the local area, and every citizen watch it in font of televisions at home.

Finally, the arguer overemphasizes the importance of the surveys. However, the arguer does not explain which organization organize this survey, and how many citizens were investigated in this survey, and when does this survey started. So the survey is extremely vague, it can not convince us that the resident really rank water sports as their favorite recreation. Maybe their favorite sports are playing basketball, football, golf etc. Furthermore, the resident's hobby is peaceful, maybe they spent most of their time in library or surfing the Internet, even auditing in the college.

To sum up, the conclusion lack credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. To strength the argument, the arguer needs to support more information about the announcement and so with the survey, because they all stand on uncertain facts.