argument137 写到中间觉得乱,影响速度啊..

lindorUID: 2290025

TOPIC: ARGUMENT137 - The following appeared in an editorial in the Mason City newspaper.
"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."
WORDS: 458          TIME: 0:47:24          DATE: 2007-2-8

In this argument, the arguer concludes since recreational use of the river will increase the Mason City council need increase its budget for improvements to the publicly lands along the Mason River. To support his conclusion, the arguer points out that the agency responsible for rivers plans to clean up Mason River and then residents would use this river for recreational activities much more. This argument is well-presented at the first glance; however, it is not well-reasoned for suffering several critical flaws as follows.

To begin with, the arguer simply assumes that the reason why residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for recreational activities is that the water is not clean enough.  The arguer ignores any other possible alternatives. It is quite possible that the river has too much curves to swimming or boating in this river. Or, perhaps, the river does not contain any fish for people to fishing. To make the arguer's conclusion more convincing, the arguer should provide more information of the river to clarify the real reason of the seldom recreational usage to Mason River.

Furthermore, the arguer fails to provide sufficient related information about the survey of residents' forms of recreation. On the one hand, we are not informed that how many people were surveyed, and if the number of subjects is less than 100, the survey might not be representative. On the other hand, even thought residents prefer water sports as their recreation forms, whether people really take such activities is open to doubt. It is in all likelihood that they have so heavy work that they have no time to anticipate water sports. Additionally, even if residents really like water sports, maybe there are enough places such as swimming pools for them to play those sports. Unless the arguer attests that residents need more places to play water sports, I can not accept the conclusion.

Last but not least, even though the two requirements can be met, the arguer makes a irrational suggestion for the Mason City council to increase budget for improving the publicly owned lands along the Mason River. It is possible that those publicly owned lands are good enough and do not need any improvement. Again the arguer fails to define the improvements whether they would destroy or more or less harm the ecological system of the river. If so, then such improvements should not be executed.

To sum up, this argument is groundless and lacks of credibility to support the arguer's conclusion after serious scrutiny. To make this argument more sensible, the arguer should provide more information about the river and residents recreational activities in real. Plus, the arguer should seriously consider the necessity and the effect of the improvements to the publicly owned lands along the river.