Argument200 补作业

mhyxxcmzUID: 178642

TOPIC: ARGUMENT200 - Statistics collected from dentists indicate that three times more men than women faint while visiting the dentist. This evidence suggests that men are more likely to be distressed about having dental work done than women are. Thus, dentists who advertise to attract patients should target the male consumer and emphasize both the effectiveness of their anesthetic techniques and the sensitivity of their staff to nervous or suffering patients.
WORDS: 343          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-2-19

    This argument contends that dentists should take ad's target on male consumer. To support this assertion, the author points out statistics showing that men are more likely to faint during visit to dentists. Careful examination of this supporting evidence, however, reveals that it lends little substantiated evidence to the recommendation about dentists' advertisement.
    To begin with, the argument relies on a suspicious assumption that the number of male patients contributing to these statistics is equal to female. (number, female 是不是存在问题) It is entirely possible, for instance, that the sum of male respondents is so far larger than female (sum, female 和上面一样的问题)respondents that albeit more men than women faint, the men's incidence of fainting, (一开始用frequency，是不是准确，改成incidence还是感觉不太对，我想说晕倒的比例，怎么说准确，简洁)  in reality, (插入语，放在be前还是be后？) is quite lower. Without addressing this possibility and ruling it out, therefore, the recommendation that dentists should pay more attention to attract male consumer is open to doubt.
    Even if the rate of men fainting comes up to women, (一样的问题，对比较级后面的所有格形式存在疑问)  the argument rests on the further unsubstantiated reasoning that men feel distressed, more than women, about having dental work done. Perhaps, men contributing to statistics have more painful and serious dental ills than women. Or perhaps, women may suffer from more pain, yet, not fainting because of more solid willpower. Even perhaps, some female patients had adopted anesthetic techniques before dental therapy. Hence, any of these scenarios, if true, would cast significant doubt on the questionable reasoning that men would actually suffer from more dental ache than women in the same conditions.
    Finally, even if the author can substantiate all of the foregoing assumptions and reasoning, (the author's recommendation that ad should focus on men is still unwarranted.) the author provides insufficient evidence that the proposed advertisement will have the intended effect. In fact, it is utterly possible that few men notice these ads contrary to women. In addition, it is also possible that these dental ads, which overemphasize distress and fainting so that a host of patients would rather enduring twinge than visiting doctor, will have the opposite effect. In the absence of ruling out these and other alternative explanations to prove that ad will be successful, the author's assertion is unwarranted.
    In sum, the author cannot justify his or her adverting recommendation on the basis of the scant evidence. To bolster the argument, the author must provide better evidence that 1, the statistics is convincing and its respondents are representative of dental patients in general; 2, in the same situations, men feel more distress than women without doubt; 3, the dental ad recommended by author will have the wished-for effect.