argu 161求指教~

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剩十几天就考了，憋出来第一篇argu~求指教，不胜感激~

TOPIC: ARGUMENT161 - In a study of reading habits of Leeville citizens conducted by the University of Leeville, most respondents said they preferred literary classics as reading material. However, a follow-up study conducted by the same researchers found that the type of book most frequently checked out of each of the public libraries in Leeville was the mystery novel. Therefore, it can be concluded that the respondents in the first study had misrepresented their reading habits.
WORDS: 473          TIME: 0:48:18          DATE: 2010/7/18

By evaluating the reading habits of Leeville citizens conducted by the University of Leeville twice,the author declares that  the respondents in the first study had misrepresented their reading habits.The argument seems to be logical at first sight,however,some essential factors has been omitted.

In the first place,the author fails to give us the education backgrounds of the respondents in the two studies.Are they possible to be the students in the university,who are interested in literary classics?Or are they just the zealotry fans of literary classics?Or coincidentally,the respondents are not in favor of any kind of books ,thus ,they choose the literary classics?These are definitely possible.Meanwhile,we even do not know the sample size of the respondents,giving us the space to imagine that is it too small to reflect the real reading habits of Leeville citizens?More details has to be put forward by the author to support his opinions.Even if the respondents of the study are appropriate and the sample size is proper,we may still tell that ,the first study is certainly right because the time interval between the two studies is not acclaimed.It is realistically common that during a long period of time,the reading habits of Leeville citizens has changed gradually from the literary classics to the mystery novels.

Secondly,the second study of the reading habits can't  thoroughly indicate that the citizens are interested in the mystery novels lacking of enough evidence supporting that citizens of Leeville are used to gong to the public libraries.Maybe the people who only like the mystery novels prefer to borrow books from the library and the ones who have an inclination of the literary classics used to buy books at bookmarkets or reading through the Internet.Another factor worth considering is that whether the popularity of the mystery novels  has any relationship with the fashion of relative TV series or some other reasons.Thus,we can't make a conclusion that the first study of the reading habits is misrepresented.

What's more,the author has given us a vague definition of the literary classics and the mystery novels.Are the citizens of the two studies have a misunderstanding of the definition?Granted that the respondents are clear of it, could they figure out the exactly difference between the literary classics and the mystery novels?It is possible that there is no accurate difference between literary classics and mystery novels,and they two may have something in common as well.For instance,A masterpiece LIAO ZHAI ZHI YI created by a famous writer named P u Song Ling,who lived in the Qing Dynasty of China,has always been regarded as both a literary classic and a mystery novel.In such case, both studies are not strongly persuasive.

In sum,this argument of reading habits of Leeville citizens based on the two studies could provide  some information of the people's preference,however,We will be more interested if more details and more reliable evidence could be carried out.