argument67[Spring-第５次作业］

gloriaguo1986UID: 2232808

ARGUMENT67 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a newspaper serving the villages of Castorville and Polluxton.

"Both the villages of Castorville and Polluxton have experienced sharp declines in the numbers of residents who pay property taxes. To save money and improve service, the two villages recently merged their once separate garbage collection departments into a single department located in Castorville, and the new department has reported few complaints about its service. Last year the library in Polluxton had 20 percent fewer users than during the previous year. It follows that we should now further economize and improve service, as we did with garbage collection, by closing the library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville to serve both villages."
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　字数：534         用时：1:10:00          日期：2007-11-27

     　In this letter, the writer recommends closing the library in Polluxton(P) and using the one in Castorvile(C) to serve both villages to further economize and improve services. To support this recommendation, the writer cites the fact that there have been few complains reported about the service of the new garbage collection department located in C since two villages merged their once separate departments into one. Careful examination of this supporting evidence, however, reveals that it lends little credible support to the recommendation.
   　 First of all, few complaints about the new garbage collection department's service reported by the department doesn't necessarily mean that its service has been really improved. The claim does not indicate who charged the report, whether or not a survey has been conducted, or how they collected complains about its service from the residents in both villages. Also, the argument overlooks the possibility that some complains may have been hidden by certain people on purpose.
    　Secondly, even assuming that the new garbage collection department does work efficiently, what happened to this department is not a sound evidence to draw a conclusion that the same method should been taken to the library. In order for uniting two garbage collection departments into one to serve as a model that we should emulate when faced with the problem of library, a writer must assume that all relevant circumstances involving the decline are essentially the same. However, this assumption is unwarranted. For example, workers of the united garbage collection department can go to the two villages to collect garbage, while people have to go to the library  by themselves. Therefore the united library will bring great inconvenience to residents in P. Or perhaps the united garbage collection can get the trucks and workforce doubled, while united library can hardly achieve this since the book collection of  two library  are likely to overlap each other and a merging of the two can not improve the quality of the book collection.
   　Thirdly, considering the cost of this method, the aim of further economizing and improving the service is not promising in the long run. The conveyance of the great amount of books from the P library to the united library may cost a lot of money and workforce. And after the shutdown, the readers from P may complain the long distance between the two villages while the residents of C may complain the service of the resources shared by the newcomers.
  　 Finally, to serve both villages, why should we close the library in P instead of that in C? We are not informed whether or not the library in C experienced a decline in the use of it. Maybe the situation in the library of C is worse than that in the P library. Besides, Last year's decline of users in P does not necessarily mean a successive decline in the following years. Without considering and ruling out these possibilities, I cannot be persuaded to accept the writer's recommendation.
   　To sum up, the recommendation of the united library lacks of credibility. Regardless of who the writer is, he/she has overlooked many aspects of his or her conclusion. To strengthen the conclusion, the writer should provide more evidences about the above-mentioned possibilities.