sally 小组 issue220 2 月16的作业

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题目：ARGUMENT 220 - The following appeared in an article in a magazine for writers.

"A recent study showed that in describing a typical day's conversation, people make an average of 23 references to watching television and only 1 reference to reading fiction. This result suggests that, compared with the television industry, the publishing and bookselling industries are likely to decline in profitability. Therefore, people who wish to have careers as writers should acquire training and experience in writing for television rather than for print media."
字数：506          用时：0:30:00          日期：2006-2-16

In this article for writers, the arguer recommends that people who hope to be a writer should firstly write for television but not for print media. To support his recommendation, the arguer provides a recent study that people talk about watching television much more frequently than talk about reading fiction to conclude that television industry is more profitable than publishing industries. It is sound at first glance, but by scrutiny, several flaws make the recommendation unpersuasive.

First of all, the reliability of the study is open to doubt. The arguer does not provide any information about how the study conducted. Some problems like how many people are studied in the survey, is the number large enough to be statistically significant, are those people' habit representative of all people's habits are still unsolved. Without imparted detail information of the study, the arguer cannot confirm us that the study is believable.

In the second place, granted that the study is reliable, the fact that people talk more about television about watching TV than reading fiction does not necessarily reflect people's habit of life. For one thing, it is possible that people are always reading different books so reading cannot be a consensus topic for daily conversation while some television program like national news are acquired by everybody, to they talk much about it. For another thing, the study only survey the times people mention to reading fiction but not show times people talk about reading magazines, news paper or else professional books. It is quite possible that reading fiction only consists of very little part of readings so that only 1 reference to reading fiction cannot reflect people's truly reading habit. Without ruling out those possibilities mentioned above, hastily concluding that watching TV is more popular than reading is misleading.

In the third place, the arguer unfairly assumes that television industry is more profitable than publishing industries. Even people watch television frequently can bring television industry high income, but its high cost may total offset the over-received income. But the publishing industries are just in the opposite situation. So simply draw conclusion that publishing and bookselling industries are likely to decline in profitability maybe ungrounded.

Last, fact that people who with the ability to be a writer in the future cannot guarantee that they are capable to pursuit a career in television writings. Probably these two are completely different kind of writing, both of which require different style of writing and instinctive material and content to get. People good at print media are not necessarily do well in writing for television. Without consider these possibility, following article's suggestion may not be efficient but rather harmful.

In sum, the argument is inconvincible as it stands. To better prove the suggestion, the arguer should impart us the detail information about how the survey conduct and the daily talk can truly reveal the citizen’s preference. In addition, the arguer should give evidence that writing for television is profitable job and everybody who wants to be a write can manage it well