Argument14 麻烦各位拍砖

derek.zhangUID: 2765067

"There is evidence that consumers are becoming more and more interested in growing their own vegetables. A national survey conducted last month indicated that many consumers were dissatisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables available in supermarkets. And locally, the gardening magazine Great Gardens has sold out at the Village News stand three months in a row. Thus, we at Green Thumb Gardening Center can increase our profits by greatly expanding the variety of vegetable seeds we stock for gardeners this coming spring."
WORDS: 431          TIME: 00:29:26          DATE: 2010/3/5 21:58:40

In this memo, the author recommends that Green Thumb Gardening Center(GTGC) should expand greatly the variety of vegetable seeds to increase their profits. To strengthen this recommendation, the author cites the results of a national survey about people's satisfaction with the quality of fresh vegetables and the fact about the magazine selling at Village News stand. However, close scrutiny reveals that this argument contains several unconvincing assumptions, which render it specious and untenable.

To begin with, the author hastily applys the national situation to the suburban town equally. The author obviously overlooks the town's own special conditions.  For example, it is entirely possible that the town offers fresh vegetables to its residents and people in this town are much satisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables in their nearby supermarkets. Without ruling out such possible explanations, the author cannot justifiably assume that people in this town were also dissatisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables and would prefer to grow their own vegetables.

Moreover, the author unfairly assumes that people who are not satisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables would grow vegetables themselves. However, the author provides no evidence to claim that this would be the case. There is an alternative possibility that these people would purchase fresh vegetables from other places instead of supermarkets. It is also entirely possible that these people would continue to buy fresh vegetables from these supermarkets even they were not satisfied with the quality because of the convenience. Without taking into account and ruling out such possibilities, the author cannot confidently draw the conclusion that people who are dissatisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables would grow their own vegetables.

Another problem with the argument is that Green Thumb's selling out proves noting about people's willingness about growing their vegetables. The author fails to provide any more sufficient evidence to substantiate this would be the case. It is possible that the Village News stand reduced the amount of magazine these three months and people who buy the magazine are concerned about other contents the magazine provides, such as the relation between vegetables and health care. Lacking of more reliable evidence, the author cannot draw any general conclusion about people's willingness of growing their own vegetables based on this mere fact.

To sum up, this  argument is not persuasive as it stands because the evidence cited in this analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer maintains. To bolster it, the author should take into account the town's own conditions. And the author should also provide more specific evidence concerning about people's willingness of growing their own vegetables.