处女作 arguement 137 [冲刺 小组] 第一次作业

MUMU520UID: 2502696

"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."



This argument concludes that the recreational use of Mason River is likely to increase and recommends the Mason City council should increase its budget for improvement to the public lands along the Mason River. To support these, the speaker argues that the region’s residents seldom use the Mason River for entertainment because they think that it is not clean enough. The speaker then point out that the agency responsible for rivers has announced plans to clean up the river. This argument suffers from several logical flaws and is therefore unconvincing.

First of all, the author argues that the seldom use of the Mason River for recreational activity was due to its unclean water since there have been complains about the quality of the river from the residents. Moreover, the author has not shown any correlation, let alone a cause-and-effect relationship, between the infrequently use of the river and the water’s quality. Lacking evidence to confirm this assumption, it is entirely possibly that the currents in the river are swift, and no body would swim for fear of being pulling under. Or, perhaps there are a large number of crocodile living near the riverbank therefore dangerous for any forms of recreation. Without considering and ruling out other possible reasons why the region’s residents rarely use the Mason River for enjoyment the speaker cannot convince me that the agency’s plans to clean up the river could increase the recreational use of it.

Secondly, even if the dirty water is the only reason for the infrequently use of the river, the mere fact that the agency responsible for rivers in the region has announced plans to clean up the Mason River proves nothing about the increased recreational use of it. Common sense informs me that just depend on a series of published plans, the serious pollution problems cannot be solved quickly. Thus, lacking clearer information about the way in which the river could be clean up and when would the project be done, the speaker cannot justify such a sweeping conclusion that the recreational use of the river is likely to boost.

Thirdly, even confirming the assumptions mentioned above are reliable, the speaker’s recommendation for the Mason City council to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands the Mason River is unwarranted since is no evidence to support the relationship between the increased use of the river and improvements to the public lands along it. In fact, it is entirely possible that the fundamental uses of the river, such as swimming and boating which are playing in the river, do not command for improvements to the lands along the river.

In sum, the argument is logically unsound. To strengthen it the speaker must provide clear evidence that the crucial reason for the seldom use of the Mason River is the quality of its water. To better assess the argument, I would need more information about the plans announced by the agency. I would also need to know the purpose to for the Mason City council to boost its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River.

提纲 1 不去那活动，原因不是水质，M河不适合进行娱乐
2 只公布计划，不能解决问题
3 转移话题 沿岸公共土地需要改进？

[ 本帖最后由 MUMU520 于 2008-8-1 20:57 编辑 ]