Argument137【Persistence小组】第16次作业

vinnieUID: 2104933

137The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.

"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."
提纲. 1 人们不去MASON去游玩可能有别的原因
     2 水质不好未必是主要原因
     3 为什么一定要改善土地
In the above argument, the editorial says that people seldom use Mason River for recreational activity because of the quality of water. Now, the plan to clean up Mason River comes out, as a result the council should increase the budget to improve the land along river to satisfy the increasing demand of recreational use of the river. However, this argument is flawed in some respects areas so that the conclusion can not stand well.

First, the quality of river may not be the only reason that people didn’t use Mason River for recreational activity. It is possible that Mason River is near the sea. Contradicted to the river, going to the sea for recreational activity is the first option of the Mason City citizens. It is reasonable that people seldom use Mason River to play. On the other hand, we should also consider that whether the situation of Mason River fits for these recreational activities such as swimming, boating, and boating. If Mason River does not fit well for play, the conclusion of the argument is absolutely wrong as the premise of it already can’t stand.

Second, the plan to clean up Mason River doesn’t mean that the recreational use of the river will increase. In the argument, the author doesn’t mention the purpose of the plan to clean up the river. If the purpose is to develop fishery of Mason River, I think that the recreational use of river may not increase in the future. However, the author of the editorial didn’t show us the really goal of the plan to clean up Mason River. As a result, there is no point to support that the recreational use of river will be in increasing.

At last, even if the assumption above can stand, there are also some doubtful points in conclusion that the council will need to increase the budget to improve the publicly owned land along Mason River. We have no idea about the situation of the land nowadays. Should the land be improved necessary? It is possible that there is no need to improve the land along the river as it is quite well already and can satisfy the demand of creational use with no problem. Nevertheless, author didn’t provide further information about it.

In sum, I agree that it is quite possible that the recreational use of river will increase because of the plan of clean up the river. But further investigation and survey are still needed before ultimate action.