第5次作业【0710G Victors互助小组】 puzilong

puzilongUID: 2308557

Argument65
The following appeared in a memo from the president of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States.

"For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were all domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
   
The memo presents that the chain of cheese sores should decrease their stocking of those kinds of imported cheese and pay more attentions on domestic cheese. For this conclusion, the memo lists two reasons to support it: The five best-selling cheeses of their newest store were all domestic cheeses that were produced in Wisconsin; A survey shows a good trend for domestic cheeses be subscribing. Although the memo seems to do a nice analysis, in my opinion, it is not so perfect.
First of all, the memo does not give a convictive example to prove that the domestic cheese is more popular than imported cheese. It is true that the five best-selling cheeses are domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin, but let us advert that the information just concerns the newest store. What about other stores? Perhaps most stores sold more imported cheese instead of domestic cheese. And compare to the five best-selling cheeses, the other kinds of imported cheeses maybe had a nice selling too, that is, the gross selling of imported cheese is possible more bigger. After all, their stores have varieties of cheeses. Even if, the situation that the selling of domestic cheese is better, but it only represents last year’s selling trend. A statistics of one year apparently can not verify that the chain stores’ selling in the past and future. Therefore, the information is questionable.
Second, the memo can never come to this conclusion through a survey by Cheeses of the World magazine. The survey only is confined with its subscribers and do not interview all of them. Obviously the number and scope of the people who were surveyed is too limited. How could you assert that all pizza restaurants sell one pizza when you only consume one restaurant of the chain stores? To this point, the survey is dubious.
In sum, because the memo have not listed substantial and cogent examples and facts to support its view of that the company should limit their stocking of imported cheeses and invest in domestic cheeses more. Without enough study and survey, without convinced figure, without definite causality, the arguer comes to a questionable conclusion. Consequently, the president of the chain store should do more job and then make a right and reasonable decision.

[ 本帖最后由 puzilong 于 2007-5-31 09:10 编辑 ]

冬天的鹰UID: 2191930

这个题目我的分析过程是这个样子的：
结论：我们应该主要卖本地的奶酪，减少进口奶酪。
原因：我们要在所有的商店中都获得更大的利润。
论据：
1. （这是隐含前提1）销量大就意味着利润高；
2. （这是隐含前提2）销量大的奶酪占用的库存就少，从而降低成本；
3. 去年在我们新开的商店里卖得最好的5种奶酪都是本地的；
4. 有一项调查如何如何。

那么再看一看这4个论据，是不是会让人觉得，后两个论据，也就是在题目中很明显的那两条可攻击点，其实对于结论而言，都是次要的证据呢？是不是如果隐含的两个前提不成立的话，哪怕后两个论据都是非常正确的，仍然无法达到结论，反之则不然，无论后两条论据如何的荒谬不经，只要前两条论据是正确的，那么结论还是有一定的道理的呢？

所以如果是我来写argument的话，我更愿意用一半的篇幅来讨论这两个隐含的前提，而对于后两个论据，放在最后用1/3的篇幅批驳一下就好。