0910G【try best】第二组 第二次作业 argument173 by seraphy1986

seraphy1986UID: 2629743

TOPIC: ARGUMENT173 - The following is a memorandum issued by the publisher of a newsmagazine, Newsbeat, in the country of Dinn.

"Our poorest-selling magazine issues over the past three years were those that featured international news stories on their front covers. Over the same period, competing news-magazines have significantly decreased the number of cover stories that they devote to international news. Moreover, the cost of maintaining our foreign bureaus to report on international news is increasing. Therefore, we should decrease our emphasis on international news and refrain from displaying such stories on our magazine covers."
WORDS: 449
TIME: 01:40:00
DATE: 2009-6-1 20:40:05

In this argument, the publisher concludes that the magazine should decrease their emphasis on the international news and refrain from displaying such stories on their magazine covers in order to raise the sales of the magazine. The arguer points out that in the past three years, the competing news-magazines have significantly decreased the number of cover stories on international news. In addition, the arguer also reasons that the cost of reporting the international news is increasing.The argument is unconvincing for several reasons.
First of all, the publisher fails to establish a causal relationship between featuring international news stories on magazines'front covers and the poor sales of this magazine. Poor sales might be caused by other reasons such as the quality of the contends in the magazine, the design of the cover, the word of the headline and so on. Without further direct causal evidence, the writer's argument fails to convince that decreasing the international new stories cover will increase the sales of Newsbeat.
Secondly, another point worth considering is that the competing news-magazines has decreased the cover stories of international news implys the international news is not suitable for the covers. The rivals may encounter with their own problems, financial problems, for example, that they have to decrease the international news as cover stories. The publisher doesn't tell us whether the sales of the competing news-magazines increased or decreased in the past three years. Even though the competing magazine's sales increased, the publisher has not provide any envidence that the increase is merely caused by the decrease of the international news cover. Thus, without the information above, it is not wise to follow the rivals’actions. What’s more, it’s possible the sales of Newsbeat increase as it might become the only magazine covering international news without the competing of other magazines.
Finally, the publisher ignores other means to report on international news besides maintaining foreign bureaus. Newsbeat might send reports to the place where the news happens and transmit it back with computers. It’s not necessary to maintain foreign bureaus there. Furthermore, granted that featuring international news stories on the front page did cause the poor-selling of the magazine, it doesn’t imply that the amount of international news in the magazine should increase which might change the whole style of the magazine and miss the sincere readers.
In sum, the conclusion in this argument is invalid and misleading. To make the argument more convincing, the publisher would have to prove that the poor-selling of Newsbeat is only caused by using the international news as front cover stories. To better evaluate the argument we need more information about why the competing magazine decrease the number of front stories on international news.


提纲：
1、
concurrence with causality 可能有因果关系，但由于证据不足不能证明必然有因果关系。
2、
证据不足，或只是提供有利证据，不知对手减少国际新闻作为封面的原因。而且，进一步，Newsbeat也许可能因为对手退出竞争而提升销量。
3、
作者忽略了解决问题的其他方法。