Argument137[Jet]第11次作业

zhxj1985UID: 2353169

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: 550          TIME: 00:59:57         

The statement concludes that the Mason City council needs to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River. To justify this claim, the arguer cites surveys of the region's residents which show that water sports are ranked as a favorite form of recreation activities. In addition, the author claims that the seldom use of the Mason River due to the poor quality of the water in the river. Thus the use of the river will be likely to increase as the plans announced by the agency responsible for rivers in this region which aims at cleaning up this river. However, several important concerns, which the arguer fails to address in the analysis, may strongly undermine this argument.

First of all, the author fails to establish a causal relationship between the seldom use of the Mason River and the quality of the water in the river. There is no evidence that the Mason River was polluted, and the arguer doesn't provide any reasonable evidence to support that it is the quality of the water that cause the residents' alienation of the river. Additionally, the surveys on which the author based to claim that water sports are ranked as a favorite form of recreational activities might not be supporting without any instruction about them.

On the other hand, the author fails to account for the assumption that the recreational use of the river would really increase after it becomes clean. Does the circumstance around the river suit to recreational activities? Does the water in the river flow rapidly? Whether the bank of the river is too sharp to approach? Etc. The arguer couldn't convince me that the use of the river will really increase after it becomes clean without answers of such questions. What is more, although water sports are ranked as a favorite form of recreation in this region, there is no evidence to support that the residents in this City will accept this river after it becomes clean as they haven't use it for sports for a long time.

In final, the plans to clean up the river announced by the agency responsible for rivers in this region doesn't mean that quality of the water in the river would become better. Everyone knows that it is more difficult to clean up than polluting. There are no instruction about how much severe is it of the quality of the water in the river, the working efficiency of this agency, and the cleaning up capability of the agency etc. Lacking such instruction it is equally possible that the author proposed the statement in the interest of the agency in this region. On the other hand, does the facilities in the publicly owned lands along the Mason River need to be improved? If not, the author might be a representation of some company who wants to benefit from the improvement.

To sum up, the author fails to provide efficient evidence to substantiate that the quality of the water in Mason River is bad, and the assumption that the recreational use of the river would increase might be fallacious without enough distinct evidence to support. Thus the government of Mason City needs to estimate all alternatives before any policies of the budget are implemented.

[ 本帖最后由 zhxj1985 于 2008-2-26 23:18 编辑 ]