Argument117 [Chasing For "6" Score]第五次作业

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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."

最近一次调查超过70％的回应者报告说他们被要求回家完成的工作量比以前多。由于Valu-Mart在过去并没有发现办公用品部销量的显著上升，我们应该利用这种在家办公的趋势，在所有Valu-Mart商店增加家庭办公机器比如打印机、小型复印机、碎纸机和传真机的存货。我们也将增加办公用品比如纸笔和钉书机的存货。通过这些变革，我们办公用品部将会成为我们商店中盈利最多的部门。

The manager of Valu-Mart stores concludes that the office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of their stores due his tactic to increasing the stock of home office machines. But this argument suffers several fallacies.

In the first place, the arguer’s conclusion is based on the hypothesis that sales of home office machines will increase dramatically, but there is no evidence in this argument to support this assumption. We can find no information in this argument that the demands of home of machines such as printers, small copy machines and so forth will rise. Even if more and more people are required to take more work home than they were in the past, but this phenomenon does not imply that these people need more home office equipment. Because these people were asked to work at home, they certainly have these home office machines already and they do not have to buy new ones.

In the second place, the conclusion that the work taken to home now is more than past is unconvincing. This conclusion comes from a survey which is full of suspicion. We know nothing about these details that who make this investigation, who are the respondents and what are their occupations, and this survey is credible?It is very possible that the respondents come from the same company, which has a busy task recently, while other companies merely do not need their staffs to work at home. Even assuming the investigation covers lots of companies, but these companies’ work doesn’t do with the office equipments. Maybe this work is just handiwork. Thus, Valu-Mart stores will have no profit at all.

In addition, even assuming that the sales of these home office machines will increase, it does not mean the profit of Valu-Mart stores will certainly raise because the profit is not only deal with the sales but also depends on the quality, sorts and so on. And it is more doubtful that office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of our stores due to lacking the information of other departments.

To sum up, without considering the above and other factors, the manager makes a hasty conclusion. In order to justify his argument, the arguer should give us more persuasive information.