【kaleidoscope】第七次作业Argument14 by Atticuswang

atticuswangUID: 2663189

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."

In this memo, the author concludes that the Green Thumb Gardening Center(GTGC) can gain more profits by expanding the variety of vegetable seeds in the coming spring. To support this conclusion, the author cites a national wide survey that people showed dissatisfactory with the vegetables offered by the supermarket. In addition, the author points out the fact that the local gardening magazine sells well in the recent three months. At the first glance of this memo, the author's reasons seem plausible, while a careful examination will disclose that there are several flaws as discussed below.

To start with, the memo assumes that the national survey would apply to the suburban town where GTGC is, yet the author fails to provide any evidence to substantiate it is this case. It is entirely possible that the population of the small town only take a little account in the nation so that the result of the survey could not exactly reflect local people's willing. Perhaps the local supermarkets are very good ones and provide fresh vegetable and this phenomenal is very rare in the nation. For this matter, the result of the survey might just be opposite. Thus the survey lends less support to the author's conclusion.

Even if the above survey truly reflects the fact that people were dissatisfied with the quality of the vegetables in the supermarket, the author commits the fallacy of the either or thinking. By comparing buying vegetables from the supermarket and growing them in their own garden, the author rashly choose the latter as the solution. However, it is highly possible that there are other means to solve this problem. For instance, maybe local people will choose to get fresh vegetables from the local peasants' gardens even they may cost more, because for most planting vegetables requires sufficient time and energy. Without considering and ruling out the alternative means, the author can not confidently conclude that people will grow vegetable in their home.

In addition, the author assumes that the correlation between the good sale of gardening magazine and people's interests in growing vegetables is causal, which I take leave to doubt. It is very possible that the magazine sells very because more and more people show interested in gardening, which includes not only growing vegetables, but many other issues as well. For example, perhaps the magazine help people how to grow flowers. Consequently this is a fallacious analysis unless the author is able to rule out any other possibilities.

Last but not least, even if more and more people in the town will grow vegetables, the author can not arbitrarily conclude that GTGC will gain profits by expanding the variety of vegetable seeds. For one thing, the author overlooks that there are competitors in that town and people do not necessarily buy the seeds in GTGC alone. Even with better management and regulations, the competitors will gain more profits while GTGC will lose. For another, maybe people only like a few kinds of vegetables, hence expanding varieties of seeds do no help in increasing the profits.

In sum, the memo is not convincing as it stands. To bolster it, the author should make it clear whether the condition in the town is according with the nationwide. In order to make it more persuasive, the author should get to know what the main reason of the increase sale of the magazine, and also take the competitors of GTGC into consideration.

wdassfmUID: 2542447

A没有写~额……SORRY啦~