argument65 0710G同主题写作第6期

hiji1232UID: 2351531

65.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."
提纲：
1  调查机构不权威，没有说调查人数
2  Wisconsin销量好不表示所有国产都好，只是cheddar受欢迎
3 即使国产销量好，未必profit上升
4  只是去年销量好，不表示以后销量还会好


In the memo, the president points out that stopping stocking imported cheese and concentrating on domestic cheeses is the best way for us to get profit. To justify the assertion, the author cites that the cheddar cheese from Winsonsin is among bestseller in our store last year. The author also cites various other evidence that the Cheese of the World magazine had made the survey to indicate that domestic cheeses is more and more popular among its customers. Close scrutiny of these facts, however, the recommendation relies on a series of unsubstantiated assumption, which render it unconvincing as it stands.

A threshold problem in the argument is that it assumes that the survey conducted by the Cheese of the World magazine shows the trend. However, the argument fails to provide any information about the survey population; therefore, it is impossible to determine whether the survey result is reliable. The number of the participants might constitute an insufficiently small example to draw any reliable conclusion about the results. Also, the sample might be unrepresentative of district consumers as a group. For example, perhaps the Cheese of the World magazine is a local magazine , therefore it cannot represent the preference of all the consumers. Thus, as it stands the observer study is statistically unreliable and lends no credit support to the conclusion.

The argument also assumes unfairly that domestic cheddar cheese is the best selling cheese in our store. According , the argument resets on the assumption that the cheddar cheese from Wisconsin can represent all domestic cheeses. Yet , we are not informed whether the cheddar cheese is the only domestic cheese. It is entirely possible that other domestic cheeses are not as good as cheddar cheese in taste . Maybe only Wisconsin is the place which is suit to produce cheese. Lacking evidence that the cheddar is the only domestic cheese, the author cannot draw any conclusion that domestic cheese is popular among people.

Even assuming that the domestic cheese is preferred by the customers, however, the store would not enhance the profit by limiting inventory to reduce expense. Profitability is a function of both revenue and expense. The author fails to provide any information about how to raise the revenue. In short ,without more information about supply, demand ,and production costs , it is impossible to determine whether the store can earn a profit from discontinuing stocking imported cheese and concentrating primarily on domestic cheeses.

Even if the author can substantiate the foregoing the assumptions, the argument provide no evidence to show that the trend will last in the future. It is entirely possible that people prefer to cheese because of it is just the new things. When people began to be tired of eating cheese, the cheese market will be declining. Without taking into account these possibilities, the author cannot persuade me that the domestic cheese will be popular in the future.
  
In sum ,the author cannot validate the statement on the basic of  scant evidence provided in the memo. To bolster the recommendation, the author must provide clear evidence to show that all the customers of cheese is preferred to the domestic cheese. To validate the conclusion more sufficiently, it would be useful to know information about the cheddar is the only domestic cheese and the preference will last in the future.

[ 本帖最后由 hiji1232 于 2007-8-15 18:00 编辑 ]