argument45 April小组 第一周作业

rubenUID: 2163558

请多指教^_^

45The following appeared as an editorial in a wildlife journal.

"Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic region. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of a year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed, and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the decline in arctic deer populations is the result of deer being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea."


The article concludes that the cause of the decline in arctic deer populations is that deer can not follow their traditional migration patterns. To support this statement, the article cites some facts that are unconvincing.

First of all, it is unbelievable to conclude that the deer populations are declining only on the reports of local hunters. The article fails to consider that these reports do not reflect true status. Perhaps many deer groups have moved far away to avoid being hunted, and the hunters have not found their new trace. Or perhaps those hunters who do not agree with the decline are not included in the reports. These possibilities obviously weaken the article’s conclusion.

Even if the deer populations are declining, there is not clear evidence to show that the declining is caused by the lost of age-old migration patterns. Such decline possibly results from the excessive hunting, or the food of deer become lacking. Without ruling out these alternatives, the article can not simply think that the populations' decline of deer is because they are unable to follow their traditional migration patterns across the frozen sea.

Finally, even if deer can not follow their ancestors' migration patterns, it is still possible that their failures have nothing to do with recent global warming trends. Perhaps people have resided aside the lines of migration, or the man-made buildings have changed the environment of deer's habitats and made the migration lines difficult to be found by deer. Or perhaps earthquake has changed old migration patterns. So the article's conclusion that the global warming trends effect deer's migration patterns is unjustifiable, at least based on the cited facts.

In sum, the article's conclusion is not well supported. To strengthen the argument, the author must provide enough data to confirm that arctic deer populations are really declining. To better assess the article's conclusion, we would need more information about the influence of recent warming trends on the change of deer's age-old migration patterns.



[ 本帖最后由 ruben 于 2008-3-20 22:08 编辑 ]

soulsurvivorUID: 2412280

1 开头是不是应该再加一句：and thus the hasty decision may result in...,这样开头可能会显得更为完整，另外原文的论据可以用一句话或一两个词组概括提出，官方范文中基本都做到了这点。

2 The article fails to consider that these reports do not reflect true status.该句有Chinglish的感觉，建议改为：the arguer fails to consider the credibility of the report, which is submitted only by  hunters.

3 第二段和第四段中都重复使用了两个perhaps。

总结：文章结构不错，而且使用了让步递进。行文也基本没有太大问题，个人最喜欢第四段，比较有力，再接再厉啊！