Argument117 【CSMY作文互改小组】第三组第11次作业

meichengyuUID: 2121098

TOPIC: ARGUMENT117 - The following is a memo from the business manager of Valu-Mart stores.

"Over 70 percent of the respondents to a recent survey reported that they are required to take more work home with them from the workplace than they were in the past. Since Valu-Mart has not seen impressive sales in its office-supply departments in the past, we should take advantage of this work-at-home trend by increasing at all Valu-Mart stores the stock of home office machines such as printers, small copy machines, paper shredders, and fax machines. We will also increase stock of office supplies such as paper, pens, and staplers. With these changes, our office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of our stores."
WORDS: 487          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-1-28

Citing several unfounded assumptions as well as some dubious evidence and presenting some simple analysis, the arguer asserts that our office-supply departments will become the most profitable component of our stores with increasing stock of office supplies such as paper, pens, and staplers. However, we do not have to look very far to see the line of reasoning suffers from several critic flaws which will be discussed as follows.

To begin with, the author fails to establish the causal relationship between the people's more work at home and the increasing of home office machines sale. Lacking evidence about the percentage of owning home office machines in that place at that time. If most of the people who work home already have such supplies, buying more is obviously not necessary. Besides, even if those people work home do need the supplies, some other factors may influence their purchase like the price of the supplies is also ignored by the arguer. It is highly possible that though people need the supplies and want to buy them, the unreachable price blocks them outside. Thus, without ruling out such possibilities, the conclusion from the arguer's analysis is unconvincing and unwarranted.

In addition, another point that also weakens the logic of the argument is that the survey quoted in this argument is much problematic and doubtful. First, there is no related information to show that who conducted the survey, how many people involved in this survey and how did this survey run? Second, the author does not provide the evidence to demonstrate that the survey used in this argument is representative enough to be utilized. It is also possible that such survey was conducted in other places and no people near Valu-Mart participated in the survey. So even if the survey is authoritative, it could not represent the people who live near Valu-Mart. From above, until those questions are answered, getting such conclusion rooted from the survey is baseless and dubious.

Last but not least, before I come to my own conclusion, it is necessary to point out several other flaws which may undermine the argument as well. On one hand, no information about the stock of office-supplies in the stores present days, increasing the stocks must be hasty. On another hand, lacking information about other components of their stores, claiming that the most profitable department would be the office-supply is unilateral either. Therefore, we could easily oppose the conclusion of the arguer from so many useful analysis and evidence.

All in all, although the argument seems plausible, it is neither sound nor persuasive. The evidence cited in this argument lacks credibility which did not lend strong support to the author's claim about the inevitability between increasing stock of office supplies and making the office-supply departments become the most profitable component. To make it logically acceptable, the arguer should have to provide much more specific evidence concerning to the factors mentioned above.