0910G【Try Best】第二小组 第二次作业 argument173 by 许浩杰

许浩杰UID: 2644623

0910G【Try Best】第二小组 argument173 by 许浩杰
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.

In this argument, the arguer recommends that in order to improve sales the magazine should decrease its emphasis on international news and refrain from displaying such stories on its covers. To support the recommendation the publisher pointed out that the magazine’s poorest-selling issues during the last three years have been those with cover stories about international events, and that during the same period the number of international cover stories appearing in other news magazines has decreased . At first glance, the author’s argument appears to be somehow appealing, while a close examination will reveal how groundless it is. We do not have to look very far to see the invalidity of this argument. This argument suffers from at least 4 logical flaws.

First, the author commits a fallacy in assuming that the international cover stories will automatically result in that these magazine issues are poor-selling. The author does not provide sufficient evidence to support that claim. There is no reason to believe that the sales of these issues are relatively fewer will occur automatically by barely cover stories. The author ignores the possibility that people might dislike the other stories in these issues instead of the international cover stories. It is entirely possible that people profoundly enjoy these international cover stories but at last they find only the cover stories do they want to read, certainly, and they will not buy these issues just for one cover story.

Moreover, the argument fails to indicate that whether other magazines also experienced an decrease in sales just due to people’s salary are decreasing during that period of time then fewer people want to buy some magazines. Perhaps international events in that time are not as appearing to people as some domestic news, such as campaign, culture movements, even suffering from a severe financial crisis. In short, without ruling out other possible explanations for the relatively poor sales of these particular issues the speaker cannot justifiably conclude that international cover stories were the only cause of the relatively poor sales.  

In addition, the competing news magazines decreased the number of cover stories that they devote to international news cannot give enough credible support for the international cover story relatively poor sales. Maybe the competing news magazines have such difficulty on their financial circumstances that they cannot afford maintaining their foreign bureaus to report on international news. If so, there is no doubt that they will decrease their international news reports rather than the international cover stories relatively poor sales result in that. Maybe, the competing magazines claim that domestic news are more important than the international news while we think the cover stories affect more.      

While the fact that increasing costs of maintaining international news bureaus as an additional reason to de-emphasis international news lend support to the publisher’s suggestion, the publisher overlooks the possibility that the competing magazine will increase their cost as we do. Supposed that if we arranged the money properly and maintained international news bureaus more scientifically while the ravel had not reach these point, we would overwhelm other competing magazines on reporting international news. If so, all people who want to read some international news would have to buy our magazines if they want to read some authoritative international news. It would be hasty to implement the publisher’s suggestion without acknowledging and exploring the possible scenario.  
   
In sum, the argument is unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it the author must show that additional evidence that the only cause to relatively poor-selling issue is its international cover stories rather than any other factors, and that the comparison between the magazines publisher is unbelievable because they embrace different backgrounds and ideas. Finally, the authors provides no evidence whatsoever to support his recommendation for decreasing emphasis on international news and refrain from displaying such stories on our magazine covers; to justify this claim the author must provide supporting evidence.

seraphy1986UID: 2629743

阅毕，整片文章逻辑清晰，行文流畅，还不错啊。打分：4-4.5

tianshi02UID: 2362794

很不错， 美中不足的是，在In addition那段，你可以多一两句分析，只给出一些scenario感觉有点像狡辩。