ARGUMENT65【Aero小组】第11次作业

lovemxfUID: 2335206

TOPIC: 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."
WORDS: 329          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-1-31 14:59:08

The speaker recommends that the best way to improve prove profits in all of their stores is to discontinue stocking imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses. To justify it, the arguer cites a survey and several evidence. However, the argument is unconvincing for statistic problems and problematic reasoning.

Firstly, the evidence that the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were all domestic cheeses could not support the conclusion that the domestic cheeses are better sale than import one. That might not be the case. The arguer only provides five new stores as example and we do not know the sales of other stores. It is possible that these five stores are in the areas that the citizenry there prefer local cheeses to imported cheeses. But the citizens in other areas do not like domestic cheeses. Therefore, the evidence could not convince us.

Secondly, the survey the arguer cites suffers from many problems. First we do not know the survey's samples are sufficient in size and representative of the whole group people who buy cheeses. Perhaps the magazine is reported only within some areas but not a nationwide. Therefore, the subscribers are not representative of the people in general. Or perhaps, the magazine is not very popular in the country. For this matter, the subscribers are very few. Without consider these possibilities, the arguer fails to conclude that the survey is viable.  


Finally, even if the survey is reliable, the recommendation that the best way is to discontinue stocking the imported cheese and concentrate on domestic cheeses in all stores. That might not be the case. Firstly, the solution might not be suitable for all the stores for the arguer only providing five stores. Secondly, it might not improve the profits. As we know profitability is a function of both cost and revenue. The arguer does not provide any evidence about the cost involving in manufacturing and distributing of domestic cheese. Thirdly, the arguer does not provide other methods to compare. Therefore the recommendation of the arguer might not be the best one.


All in all, the argument is incredible for many fallacies. The arguer must provide more evidence to prove the argument. The arguer also needs to provide some reasonable explanation to demonstrate the reasoning process.