argument137[Jet小组]第十一次作业

ellefrancaiUID: 2449693

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: 478          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-2-25 14:27:22

The editorial appeared in the Mason City newspaper made conclusion that the Mason City council would need to increase its budget for improvement to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River since the cause of Mason City residents seldom use the Mason River for any kind of recreational activity was that the river is not clean enough, which would soon be resolved. Although it seems quite convincing, when taking a second thought, we will find it full of logical flaws which I will present as follows.

Firstly, the author did not provide adequate evidence for us to show that the pollution of the river is the critic cause of why residents seldom use the Mason River for entertainment, such as swimming, fishing and boating according to the author. The author made hasty conclusion of it just because there used to be complaints about the quality of the water in the river. However, questions like how many people made the complaints and whether these complaints are made in a long time ago are still remain unknown from the editorial. It is possible that there is only one complaint about the quality of the water in the river which is made ten years ago just because the complainer has some private problem with the cleaner of the river.  

Secondly, even assuming that the Mason River does have a pollution problem, it is still unpersuasive for the author to attribute the reason why the nearby Mason River was not used by residents for recreation activity to the pollution of the water in the river. Various reasons could make the situation that perhaps there are no fishes suitable for fishing in the river or perhaps the river is used for traffic like HuangPu River in Shanghai and it is always busy with a lot of ships in it which make it dangerous for people to go swimming or boating in it. Thus, the pollution of the river is really a tiny one of the reasons why it is not used for recreational activity.

Furthermore, evening assuming that the pollution problem of the river is the critical obstacle for people to used it for entertainment like swimming, fishing and boating etc., increasing the budget of the Mason City council for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River is nothing but running a risk of bad investment since no statistical evidence is provided by the author. There is a possibility that all the publicly owned lands are in the location which is not suitable for building any entertaining facilities. And maybe people have already form a custom of going anywhere else for recreational activity. Thus, this investment will only be a waste of the tax payer's money.

In sum, this editorial is full of logical flaws which is hardly to be convincing. Thus, the Mason City councilors should make a re-consideration.