argument137 0607GMyth小组第5次作业

最後の使徒UID: 2257608

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: 555          TIME: 0:28:12          DATE: 2006-10-31

  In the editorial, the author suggests the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River, deduced from the assertion that recreational use of the river is likely to increase after the region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. To support his assertion, the author cites surveys which show the residents are fond of water sports and the fact that there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river. Such suggestion seems strong at first glance, however, it suffers from several critical questions.

  Fundamentally, whether Mason River suffers from a poor quality of the water in the river is not detailed. The statement that there have been complaints about the quality of the water is lack of evidence: How many people complained about it? When? Perhaps only a few people complaints about the water quality because they drink water obtained from the river, or it was complained many years ago and now the situation is changed.

  Meanwhile, the conclusion that residents are avoiding the river because of its water quality is not illustrated. Even assuming the water quality is good, residents are not likely to swim and fish there, since they may have more reliable choice, like swimming pool, fishing pool and so forth. As we know, rivers could be dangerous for those who swim or go boating in them, because of its speed and complex situation. The residents may take these reasons into consideration and chose not to do sports there. To convince us about the feasibility of the suggestion, the author need to testify Mason River has good conditions for recreation, including its current speed, riverbed situation and so forth..

  Even after these conditions are ensured as proper for recreation, and Mason River is truly suffering from a poor quality of the water which prevents residents to do sports in it, the suggestion is still not convincing, because the plan of cleaning up Mason River is not proved to be well operated. The plan is just a announcement. Whether it will be executed and whether it will be effective are both not illustrated. It is entirely possible that the agency responsible for rivers does not have enough money to realize it, as well as that the plan is not well designed so it won't work even after realizing. In that sense, the author needs a more detailed investigation about the plan.

  Assuming the plan can improve Mason River's water quality, we are still not convinced about the suggestion that Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River. The current situation of those lands is not known, maybe there are enough facilities for recreation and it is not necessary to built more. Also, whether such budget will work as to improve residents' leisure life is not known, perhaps when the residents go sports there, they will drive cars and bring enough facilities, making those measures redundant.

  To sum up, the suggestion and assertion are both lack of evidence and analysis. To make his suggestion convincing, the author need to take more surveys and studies about the feasibility of developing recreation along Mason River, as well as to prove the budget for improvements is necessary.

[ 本帖最后由 lastangel 于 2006-10-31 13:39 编辑 ]