0706G － CSMY作文互改小组-第4次作业

meichengyuUID: 2121098

TOPIC: ARGUMENT2 - The following appeared in a letter sent by a committee of homeowners from the Deerhaven Acres to all homeowners in Deerhaven Acres.

"Seven years ago, homeowners in nearby Brookville community adopted a set of restrictions on how the community's yards should be landscaped and what colors the exteriors of homes should be painted. Since then, average property values have tripled in Brookville. In order to raise property values in Deerhaven Acres, we should adopt our own set of restrictions on landscaping and housepainting."
WORDS: 367          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-1-17

Citing several unfounded assumptions as well as some dubious evidence, and presenting some simple analysis, the arguer recommends that people in Deerhaven Acres(DA) should adopt their own set of restrictions on landscaping and housepainting to increase the property values as Brookville(B) does. However, we do not have to look very far to see the line of the reasoning suffers from several critical flaws which will be discussed as follows.

To begin with, obviously, this assumption presents a false analogy. The author asserts that the nearby community B tripled their average property values seven years ago by adopting a set of restrictions on how the community's yards should be landscaped and what colors the exteriors of homes should be painted and DA should follow the lead of B now, but he/she assumes without justification that the background conditions have remained the same at different times and different locations. For instance, it is highly possible that it is popular to set the restrictions on the yards and interiors colour seven years ago, but people do not prefer this uniform set nowadays anymore. Besides, maybe people in B community comes from the same place and nationality and prefer the same set of landscaping, but on the contrast, people in DA come from different places and do not have the consentaneous opinion. So, without ruling out such possibilities, the conclusion from the analysis is unconvincing.

Furthermore, another point that may also weaken the logic of this argument is that, the arguer ignored an important factor that may influence the reasons of the tripled average property values of B, the local discrepancy between DA and B. It is much possible that the rising of the average property values of B is not or not only caused by the set of restriction of how the yards and interiors landscaped, but by the beauty spots near the community, a movie star living there, a famous meeting hold there or something else that could also raise the property values in B. Lacking such information about B and DA, we could not agree with the assertion of the author.

All in all, although the argument seems to be plausible, it is neither sound nor persuasive. The conclusion lacks credibility because the evidence cited in the analysis fails to lend strong support in the arguer's claim. To make it logically acceptable, the author should have to provide much more specific evidence concerning to the giving factors.