argument 220 <永不言败小组>第四次作业

zhouding3000UID: 2400953

220The 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."

The speakers asserts that the publishing and bookselling industries are likely to narrow down in profitability due to the comparison with televison, and in this manner, for people who wish to be a professional writer, the experience in writing for television should be requisitive rather than for print media. The speaker draws the conclusion on the grounds that as a study showed, people prefer televison to books as their typical style of conversation or pastimes. Maybe there might be some links between the declination and people’s references, however, the author commits several fallcies in logics.

Firstly, the speaker fails to convince us of the credibility of the study. According to the principles for carrying on a study, a successful study should be based on a sufficient sample with randomness and the sample ought to be representative of the whole group. Otherwise, the study might be not recapitulative, for example, maybe only the people who are interested in TV or fiction would answer the poll. Lacking evidence that the study’s sample covers wide range of the country, the author’s conclusion seems premature.

Secondly, the speaker suffers from hasty generalization. The speaker states that the bookselling and publishing would be diminished due to the lack of selection, which I concede that it is done by right means. But the way we choose to decribe our typical day’s conversation is not polarized by both TV and reading. More obviously, we have a lot of other means to enjoy daily conversation and could not have TV handy all the time. For that matter, though the TV would have advantage over the reading, it can’t be concluded that the reading preference would be narrowed down against other means. In this manner, the bookselling and publishing may not be diminished.

Thirdly, to the point of profitability, we should make it clear that the profitability comes from the function of both the revenue and the expense. The speaker lacks of evidence that the number of people who prefer reading is diminished and bookselling, in turn, as the aforementioned analysis states, might not be diminished and the publishing may hover at least. For that matter, the profitability might not be narrowed down. Granted that the number of people who prefer reading will reduce due to the poll, perhaps the price of books could increase for the sake of making profits.

In sum, the speaker fails to supply the key information with which the study could be more compelling and commits a hasty generalizaiton that only the TV and book are the means for people to enjoy daily conversation. Without those evidence, the speaker’s recommendation seems unconvincing and half-baked.

[ 本帖最后由 zhouding3000 于 2007-12-16 11:47 编辑 ]