argument 159 【0806G-永不言弃小组】第五次作业 by zhouding3000

zhouding3000UID: 2400953

159 The nation of Claria covers a vast physical area. But despite wide geographic differences, many citizens are experiencing rising costs of electricity. A recent study of household electric costs in Claria found that families who cooled their houses with fans alone spent more on electricity than did families using air conditioners alone for cooling. However, those households that reported using both fans and air conditioners spent less on electricity than those households that used either fans or air conditioners alone. Thus, the citizens of Claria should follow the study's recommendation and use both air conditioners and fans in order to save money on electricity.

The author argues that all citizens of Claria should adopt the advice to use both air conditioners and fans in order to hold a reasonable expenditure on electricity. To strengthen his conclusion, the author supports that a recent study shows that the citizens who use both air conditioners and fans save most money on electricity. Considering the fact that every resident needs a tool to cool their houses, the author give that recommendation. The conclusion seems flawless at first glance, by further examination, the author commits several fallacies that makes the conclusion less convincible.

Firstly, the author suffers from hasty generalization. Since there is no evidence showing that the amount of time during which the residents are at home, which is crucial in demonstrating that the people using air conditioners spend more on electricity than the only-fan users. Chances are high that the people using air conditioners might be not less frequently at home while fan-users, due to job limitation—seemingly the only-fan users may have limited income resource, carry on household errands in most of their time at home. And plus pointing out that the effect of a air conditioner to cool houses are better than a fan’s, that is, more time being spared on the continuing using of a air conditioner, might undermine the author’s recommendation.

The mere fact that the user of both air conditioner and fan spend less than the only-fan or only-air conditioner user might not make it reasonale to purchase both of the facilities. Aside from the aforementioned two cases, the phenomen, refered to by the author, might stem from the restraint of the self-continence. Since there is no evidence offered that their habit to open air conditioner or fan is prevailing, it is reasonable to imagine that after finding out that the costs on air conditioner is large, they buy a fan intead of it, that is, using a fan only, even if they have both of the facilities.
Or perhaps they consider that the usage of air conditioner might cause the depletion of ozone layer, so they tend to use a fan.

In sum, the author fails to provide a coherent causal relationship between the economical expenditure on electricity and usage of both the fan and air conditioners. To strenghthen this conclusion, the author should offer the amout of time they spare on the two facilities and they feedback of how they feel and the cooling effect in this way.

30mins.