argument200第一次习作，轻拍

ETSsbUID: 2828664

题目：ARGUMENT200- Statistics collected from dentists indicate that three times more men thanwomen faint while visiting the dentist. This evidence suggests that men aremore likely to be distressed about having dental work done than women are.Thus, dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the maleconsumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniquesand the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.
字数：415          用时：0:30:00          日期：2010-06-06


This argument is well-presented, but notthoroughly well-reasoned. The author advocate that the dentists who advertiseto attract patients should target man and emphasis the minimum distress withtheir dental work, to justify this claim, he cites statistics which indicateman is three times more likely to faint in the dentists', and suggest that manare easy to be distressed. Close examination of this supporting evidence,however, reveals the author's claim is little credible.


The threshold problem of this argument isthat the author failed to point out the other sorts of factors that the moreman than woman faint at the dentist office. Perhaps the dentist meet manpatients three more times than man women ,or man patients have more painfuldental problem than women have, if so, the statistics seems little credible.Lacking evidence that the factor contribute to the higher rate of faint in malepatients are the same ,the argument’s conclusion that the man patients are easyget faint than woman patients is unjustified.


Secondly, even if the author cansubstantiate all the forgoing assumption, his assert that men are likely to bedistressed is still unwarranted. It is possible that woman patients’ reactionsof the distress are different from that of man patients, for example, womentend to scream to show their distress while men do not, or even woman patientsrefuse to visit dentist due to the distress. Any of these scenarios, if truewill cast considerable doubt on the argument's conclusion that the male are easyto be distressed.


A third problem involve the fact that ,theauthor provided no evidence that the advertisements will have the intendedeffect. Perhaps, comparing with man, a lager amount of women patients stillhesitate to meet the dentists. Or perhaps the emphasis of the sensitivity oftheir staff lead to a reverse effect of patient that they are easily get hurtby the sensitive staff. In short without better evidence that advertisement canpersuade more patients especially man patients to visit the dentist, the authorcannot rely on it to draw any firm conclusion about the successful andeffective of the advertisement.


In sum, the author cannot justify hisvoting recommendation on the basis of scant evidence provided in thiseditorial. To better evaluate the reliability of the study which the author'sconclusion depends, I would need more information about the size and make up ofthe sample, and I would also need more evidence of the effective of thisadvertisement.


------------
第一次习作不清楚现在大概处于什么状况。。求达人指点。。谢谢！