Argument117 欢迎大家来拍，下周二就考了

一月一号UID: 2148376

TOPIC: ARGUMENT117 - The following is a memo from the business manager of Valu-Mart stores.

"Over 70 percent of the respondents to a recent survey reported that they are required to take more work home with them from the workplace than they were in the past. Since Valu-Mart has not seen impressive sales in its office-supply departments in the past, we should take advantage of this work-at-home trend by increasing at all Valu-Mart stores the stock of home office machines such as printers, small copy machines, paper shredders, and fax machines. We will also increase stock of office supplies such as paper, pens, and staplers. With these changes, our office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of our stores."
WORDS: 415          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2006-12-22

The argument above is not cogent as it stand in that the author's conclusion that the office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of their store is base on the assumption that there are large amount of  workers would bring their works home, which is an unwarranted assumption. Besides, the arguer takes it for granted that the workers who bring work home would buy certainly their products. Thus, this argument is vulnerable in several aspects.

First, there is no direct information that the number of workers taking works home. The survey is too vague too provide any useful information. How many people responded to this survey? If there are only people took part in this survey, the result is not representative and invalid, let alone the improvement of the sale. In addition, the author fails to take into account that the tendency that those responded to this kind of survey may only be those are not satisfied with the company to demand them take work home and those who do not have this kind of  problems may would not respond to this survey. Thus, without exact number of people who taking more work home, the author cannot convince me that there are many potential customers.

Besides, the author fails to provide the reason that why their products sale is not impressive in the past. Whether it is because their products' quality id not very well and thus people do not want to buy their products? It is also likely that the price of their products is extraordinary high and this forbids their sale prosperity. If these reasons are the culprits, and even if there are a large amount of potential customers, we can hardly expect that the condition of their sales would improve.

Furthermore, as the author claims, there are many kinds of office machines and facilities, but the author does not provide any information that whether home works would need printers, small copy machines, paper shredders and fax machines. There are many kinds of companies in a city and people of each kind of work would need different facilities. Thus if there is no careful market survey and research, the arbitrary stock of these office facilities would cause severe results. Besides, the author's claim that they should also increase stock of office supplies not home office facilities is also incredible for there is no any information to indicate this need.
In sum, this argument lacks credibility that the author fails to provide persuasive evidence.