Argument67 合并图书馆 【高频！互拍！】

MagicGlaiveUID: 2112081

TOPIC: ARGUMENT67 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a newspaper serving the villages of Castorville and Polluxton.

"Both the villages of Castorville and Polluxton have experienced sharp declines in the numbers of residents who pay property taxes. To save money and improve service, the two villages recently merged their once separate garbage collection departments into a single department located in Castorville, and the new department has reported few complaints about its service. Last year the library in Polluxton had 20 percent fewer users than during the previous year. It follows that we should now further economize and improve service, as we did with garbage collection, by closing the library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville to serve both villages."
WORDS: 580         TIME: 0:41:43          DATE: 2006-8-24

In this argument, the author suggests to close library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville for both villages in order to further economize and improve service by citing an evidence of garbage department. However, this argument based on false analogy and suffers a series of hasty generalization, which render it wholly unpersuasive as it stands.

To begin with, the merging two libraries together can not be simply analogy to the example of garbage department since they have many differences. As we all know, garbage department is only a service department that in charge of garbage collection and disposal while library is a public place for people to read and study in. In most time, people just need to wait at home to have their garbage collected, whereas they have come to the library themselves to read and borrow books. Since the author did not tell us whether it is far from Polluxton to Castorville, it is possible that it would take the villagers in Polluxton much more time to go to the library if the one in their village is closed, which would be a great trouble for them. So, the suggestion might be unfeasible at all for the difference between library and garbage department.

Moreover, the author uses an unconvincing assumption that people's reading taste and habit in Polluxton and Castorville are same or similar. Perhaps, villagers of Polluxton are fond of fictions while the ones in Castorville are not; and library of Castorville are full of nonfictions which would drive Polluxton's people away from the library; or perhaps the lending rules in the two libraries are different. Maybe rules are stricter in the library of Castorville which would make villagers of Polluxton feel inconvenient when borrowing books if we close the library in Polluxton and let the one in Castorville to serve both villages.

Thirdly, the argument are greatly weaken by the assumption that merging two garbage departments together could truly improve their service and the following hast generalization to library. The author only point out that the complaints about the service of garbage department reduced by 20 percent but failed to consider the possibility that people do not feel better but villagers living in Polluxton trying to complain about the service find the new department located in Castorville is far from them so they give up. Even assuming that service of garbage department is improved after the merging, but the author can not simply asserted the service would also be better in library. Since the two departments are "merged" into a new one while the author suggests closing one library and using the other one. The way they performed are totally different, which could make the evidence inconvincible.

Finally, the author mistakenly asserts that his suggestion would further economize the service but give no reason. From above, we can assume that villagers of Polluxton may feel inconvenient and uncomfortable with the library in Castorville if the one in their village is closed. It is probable that they rarely go to the library after the suggestion conducted. Under such condition, no one would reckon the service as "economize" but a great waste of service and resources.

Accordingly, the suggestion is not well supported. To strengthen the argument, the author should figure out more similarity between library and garbage department. Finally, to better evaluate the suggestion, I need to know more about villagers' opinion--perhaps through a survey of their reading habit and collect their views on the suggestion.