argument14 【永不言弃互改小组】第六次作业 by stgzhao 7号

stgzhaoUID: 2583165

TOPIC: ARGUMENT14 - The following appeared in a memo from the owner of Green Thumb Gardening Center, a small business serving a suburban town.
"There is evidence that consumers are becoming more and more interested in growing their own vegetables. A national survey conducted last month indicated that many consumers were dissatisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables available in supermarkets. And locally, the gardening magazine Great Gardens has sold out at the Village News stand three months in a row. Thus, we at Green Thumb Gardening Center can increase our profits by greatly expanding the variety of vegetable seeds we stock for gardeners this coming spring."
WORDS: 472          TIME: 00:35:23          DATE: 2009-2-11 21:05:13

TS
调查对象为全国。未必当地亦是如此。

对超市里面的蔬菜不满意的人不一定会自己去种菜.

园艺杂志热卖不一定说明人们喜欢种菜。热卖可能因为人们喜欢种花.

即使想种菜不一定从该公司购买种子。

In this memo, the owner of Green Thumb Gardening Center (GTGC) draws a conclusion that GTGC can increase their profits by greatly expanding the variety of vegetable seeds they stock. The owner concludes this based on two factors - the result of national survey which suggest that many consumers are dissatisfied with the quality of fresh vegetables available in supermarkets and the gardening magazine Great Gardens' selling out at the Village News stand three months in a row. I find the argument weak in several aspects.
First, the argument draws the conclusion by relying on a national survey. This undermines the argument's validity. The result of a national survey is a average of the whole nation, it is entirely possible that supermarkets in the suburban town where GTGC locates provides high-quality vegetables which satisfy the consumers well. Besides, even if the local consumers are not satisfied with the vegetables available in supermarkets, no strong evidence shows that they will tend to be more interested in growing their own vegetables. Perhaps they choose to put up with it because their lack of growing vegetable knowledge. Lack of such evidence the assumption that consumers who are dissatisfied with the vegetables in supermarkets will be more interested in growing vegetables is unwarranted.
Second, the argument points out that the gardening magazine Great Gardens has sold out at the Village News stand three months in a row and assume that this matter is due to the growing desire of local people to grow their own vegetables. The argument fails to take other possibilities which may cause the increase in the Great Gardens' circulation into consideration. Perhaps in these three months Great Gardens has published a serialized fiction which draws people's eyes. There is also a possibility that local people have a growing interest in grow flowers which makes Great Gardens sold out three months in a row. Or, maybe the circulation of Great Gardens even does not increase. It is just because other stands stop selling Great Gardens for some reasons.
Finally, even if local people are becoming more and more interested in growing their own vegetables, no strong evidence indicates that they will tend to buy seeds in GTGC and hence brings great profits to it. It is possible that people may get seeds from their relatives living in rural area or from other shops who provides vegetables seeds.
In sum, the owner of GTGC's argument is unpersuasive. To strengthen it the owner must provides more evidence that local people are actually becoming dissatisfied with vegetables available in supermarkets and this leads to a increasing interests in growing their own vegetables. To better evaluate the argument I also need to know whether there are other sources of vegetable seeds and whether people will tend to GTGC to buy seeds if they do like growing vegetables.