Argument76=美丽G程小组=小组第7次作业by petric

petricUID: 2719885

TOPIC: ARGUMENT76 - The following appeared as part of an article in a health and beauty magazine.
"A group of volunteers participated in a study of consumer responses to the new Luxess face cream. Every morning for a month, they washed their faces with mild soap and then applied Luxess. At the end of that month, most volunteers reported a marked improvement in the way their skin looked and felt. Thus it appears that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin."


Grounding on a study of effect after using Luxess face Cream, supposing no other factors contribute to the improvement in volunteer's skin, the author accordingly draws the conclusion that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin. However, this argument is logically flawed in the following aspects.

One problem with this argument involves the reliability of the study. First of all, how their skin looked and felt is unscientific to be taken as evidence. The author ignores some psychological factors toward changing another cosmetic.For that matter,if the questions were leading or if the survey relied on self reports, the results might be unreliable-people might just respond with the expected answer. Secondly, we are not informed whether the number of volunteers is statistically significant, or whether they are representative of overall population with different genders, ages, habits and from different geographic regions. Consider, the smaller the sample, the greater the possibility for biased result, the less reliable the study. Lacking information about the randomness and size of the sample, the author cannot justifiably draw any conclusion whatsoever. Besides , due to the short test time -only a month, the result cannot get to the final conclusion hastily, just based on a experimental stage.

Even if the study is reliable, the author unfairly assumes it is the effect of Luxess other than other factors that improve the skin condition of volunteers. However, it might not be the case. There is little comparison between people who do not use mild soap and the volunteers. As it is known to all, soap might wash off the rest oil on skin. It is highly possible that Luxess just have an indirect or negligible impact on skin. For that matter, may be volunteers use other kinds of makeup to protect their skin. Either scenario, if true, would serve to undermine the author's claim that Luxess is effective .

Even if Luxess is the primary cause or even a contributing cause of improvements on these volunteers, it is entirely possible that the use of Luxess would not be effective to ensure similar improvement on different qualities of skin-oily skin, neutral skin, dry skin- one of which may not belong to any of volunteers. In addition, the author fails to consider skins with acnes and other problems, which might not be treated by Luxess. For that matter, the author overlooks the side effect of Luxess such as allergy. Without considering these possibilities , the author cannot convince me that Luxess is effective to all kinds of skin.

In sum, the argument relies on certain problematic assumptions which render it unconvincing as it stands . To bolster the conclusion, the author should provide more information about the reliability of the study , as well as making a comparison with those who use no soap. To better assess it , I would need to know whether it suits for other kinds of skin besides the one most of volunteers have.

claire530UID: 2363559

Grounding on a study of effect after using Luxess face Cream, supposing no other factors contribute to the improvement in volunteer's skin, the author accordingly draws the conclusion that Luxess is truly effective in improving the condition of facial skin. However, this argument is logically flawed in the following aspects.

One problem with this argument involves the reliability of the study. First of all, how their skin looked and felt is unscientific to be taken as evidence. The author ignores some(volunteers’) psychological factors toward changing another cosmetic. For that matter,if the questions were leading or if the survey relied on self reports, the results might be unreliable-people might just respond with the expected answer. Secondly, we are not informed whether the number of volunteers is statistically significant, or whether they are representative of overall population with different genders, ages, habits and from different geographic regions. Consider, the smaller the sample, the greater the possibility for biased result, the less reliable the study. Lacking information about the randomness and size of the sample, the author cannot justifiably draw any conclusion whatsoever. Besides , due to the short test time -only a（one,个人认为这里改成One语气更强烈） month, the result cannot（could not） get to the final conclusion hastily（提到get前）, just based on a experimental stage.

Even if the study is reliable, the author unfairly assumed it is(was) the effect of Luxess other than other factors that had improved the skin condition of volunteers. However, it might not be the case. There is little comparison between people who do not use mild soap and the volunteers. As it is known to all, soap might wash off the rest oil on skin. It is highly possible that Luxess just have an indirect or negligible impact on skin. For that matter, maybe the volunteers had used other kinds of makeup to protect their skin. Either scenario, if true, would serve to undermine the author's claim that Luxess is effective .

Even if (文中多次出现，建议换一个说法)Luxess is the primary cause or even a contributing cause（有点多余） of improvements on these volunteers’ skin, it is entirely possible that the use of Luxess would not be effective to ensure similar improvement on different qualities（types） of skin-oily skin, neutral skin, dry skin，etc.- one of which may not belong to any of volunteers. In addition, the author failed to consider skins with acnes and other problems, which might not be treated by Luxess. For that matter, the author overlooks the side effect of Luxess such as allergy. Without considering these possibilities , the author cannot convince me that Luxess is effective to all kinds of skin.

In sum, the argument relies on certain problematic assumptions which render it unconvincing as it stands . To bolster the conclusion, the author should provide more information about the reliability of the study , as well as making a comparison with those who use no soap(do not use soap). To better assess it(assess it better) , I would need to know whether it suits for other kinds of skin besides the one most of volunteers have.


总结：小P得谬误找得不错，条理较清楚。
      谬误一：研究本身存在的问题，如评估方法不科学，样本人数没标明。
      谬误二：可能并不是因为luxess 改善了实验者的皮肤，可能用了其他化妆品。
      谬误三：没有提供实验者的皮肤状况，可能参与者的皮肤型差不多（但我觉得这点就是研究本身存在的问题之一）
      可能因为我自己写错题了···（汗），找到谬误就这些
      小P还应当多注意时态的错误，还有可以尝试换一下其他说法，比如even if， for that matter等在文中使用的就较多~
      总的来说，小P写得还不错，哈~O(∩_∩)O~