Argument67【Triple Week】第1次练习 by Ahng

ahngUID: 2605383

TOPIC: ARGUMENT67 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a newspaper serving the villages of Castorville and Polluxton.

"Both the villages of Castorville and Polluxton have experienced sharp declines in the numbers of residents who pay property taxes. To save money and improve service, the two villages recently merged their once separate garbage collection departments into a single department located in Castorville, and the new department has reported few complaints about its service. Last year the library in Polluxton had 20 percent fewer users than during the previous year. It follows that we should now further economize and improve service, as we did with garbage collection, by closing the library in Polluxton and using the library in Castorville to serve both villages."
WORDS: 572          TIME: 00:50:00          DATE: 2009-7-12 0:58:29

The author, in this letter, concludes that the library in Polluxton should be closed and the one in Castorvill should be used to serve both villages, in order to further economize and improve the service of libraries. To bolster this idea, the argument cites the fact that the two villages, having suffered from declines in the numbers of residents paying property taxes, merged their garbage collection departments into a single one located in Castorville, then few complaints reported. In fact, after deep consideration, the argument has some logical flaws which will be presented below.

To begin with, the author fails to convince us that it can be implied that the service of the merged garbage is actually satisfying from the fact that few complaints about the service are reported. Actually, it is obvious that not all citizens will report their complaints about the service to the organization. Since the two seperate garbages have merged into one, perhaps the citizens living in Polluxton would be less likely to do these stuff due to the long distance between the two villages. Or perhaps, the organization of the garbage does not provide any approaches for citizens to present own ideas. Whatever, even the service is more satisfying, the situation of the economy of these two villages is also unknown to us, since the number of the residents paying property taxes after the combination is not provided by the author.

Secondly, the last year's decline in the number of users of the library in Polluxton may not be a indication that the number of the libraries in both of the villages will also decrease in the future. It is apparent that the decline in the Polluxton does not indicate that the number of readers is also decreased in the library of Castorville, since the circumstances of these two villages, especially those of the libraries, are, in most chances, not the same. However, even the number in Castorville decreased, as we all know, the past situation is not really predictable for the future. Maybe the decline in the last year is due to some special reasons, which may not happen in the future. For example, the population decreased or the cost of the library increased.

Last but not the least, the author does not mention the different characters between the garbages and the libraries. That is to say, the same method, ever used in the affairs of garbage, may not be applicable to the libraries, since the ways they are running are extremely different. A library needs more books to be stored in the building, whose wide range and abundant fields of books will be a most attractive character to the users. On the contrary, a garbage, needing a blank ground away from the rural areas which can not influence the citizens' life, can be more attractive by its fast and efficient processing of rubbish. Suppose the two libraries are merged, the citizens in Polluxton will be more hard to approach the library, which make it less convenient for them to read or borrow books and finally goes to the contrary of the original goals of libraries.

To give it a summary, the author of this letter fails to consider the difference between garbages and libraries. Hence, to support the idea, more related evidences should be presented. And to better assess the argument, i would need more information about the actual number of the library in Castorville.