argument177 oceanus4月作文小组4月4日作业

oceanusUID：2283238

TOPIC: ARGUMENT177 - The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette, a local newspaper.

"Membership in Oak City's Civic Club-a club whose primary objective is to discuss local issues-should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot truly understand the business and politics of the city. It is important to restrict membership to city residents because only residents pay city taxes and therefore only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city. At any rate, restricting membership in this way is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City, since neighboring Elm City's Civic Club has always had an open membership policy, and only twenty-five nonresidents have joined Elm City's Club in the last ten years."
WORDS: 392          TIME: 0:30:00+3:00          DATE: 2007-4-4

In the argument, the author concludes that membership in Oak City's Civic Club-a club should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City, and then the author provides several providence to support his recommendation. However, a careful inspection to the argument reveals how groundless it is.

In the first place, the author does not provide any evidence to demonstrate the author's claim that people who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot truly understand the business and politics of the city. As a matter of fact, this may be the other way around. As is known that whether one can understand the business and politics of the city has a business with the knowledge, experience, and background of him. In this case, since people who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere may have more experience and knowledge, it is entirely possible that they can understand the business and politics of the city well.

What's more, the author also does not provide evidence to support that only residents pay city taxed and therefore only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city, nor establish a causal relationship between them. To demonstrate the author's claim, he must provide evidence that there are no nonresidents understanding how the money could best be used to improve the city.

Furthermore, the author makes a fallacy of cursory generalization. To support the author's claim that restricting membership is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City, the author cites that only twenty-five nonresidents have joined neighboring Elm City's Civic Club in the last ten years. The mere fact supports nothing to the author's claim. First, it is possible that Oak City is different from Elm City. For instance, Oak City may be an emigration city and Elm City may not. Besides, the number twenty-five is vague. Perhaps there is only thirty nonresidents in Elm city. If so, the fact that only twenty-five nonresidents have joined neighboring Elm City's Civic Club in the last ten years will not support that restricting membership in this way is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City.

In conclusion, the argument is unconvincing as it stands. To better evaluate the argument, the author should provide more substantial evidence. Or the author cannot convince me.