Argument137 第8篇 限时25分钟，这次却话多的来不及了

amanda1011UID: 2106668

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作者：amanda1011     共用时间：25分3秒     430 words (revised 541 words)
从2005年8月2日23时51分到2005年8月3日0时16分

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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.'

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In the argument, the arguer quotes a survey about the residents' favor on the water sports and points out that some residents complain about the quality of the water in Mason River. In addition, he claims that the agency responsible for rivers in the region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. The conclusion that recreational use of the river is likely to increase and the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River seems to be sound and convincing. However, a further analysis would reveal that the reasoning in this argument is problematic in several aspects.

In the first place, the arguer unfairly assumes that the recreational use of the river is likely to increase without any evidence to demonstrate that the agency would indeed clean up Mason River. Since the agency only announced those plans and have no action or come out any result which could convince us of the improvement of the quality of the river, we have good reason to doubt that whether the river could be cleaned up very well. Moreover, the arguer claims that the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improving the publicly owned lands along the river. Unfortunately, we have no idea about the relationship between the recreational use and the publicly owned lands. Could improvement to those lands bring benefit to the residents? If we could not see the necessity to put the budget in this project, the conclusion of the arguer would be unacceptable.

Secondly, the arguer cites the result of a survey in the region's residents and wants to show us that the water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) are consistently considered as a favorite form of recreation. But this does not equate with that residents in the region would go to Mason River to do any recreational activities. It is possible that they would prefer to swim in an indoor pool or go fishing in other rivers. In addition, the arguer fails to present any detailed item about Mason River. It is very likely that Mason River is not suitable for recreational use. For example, maybe it is not deep enough for people to swim in or it has too many cobblestones to set up any recreational equipments.

Thirdly, the arguer takes for granted that the reason why residents avoid going to Mason River for recreation is that they think the river is not clean enough just based on the complaints about the quality of the river from some people. But there is no solid evidence about whether the river is clean or not. If there are only a few people complaining about the river, their opinions could not illustrate the real problems. If it is not that case, improvement on the quality of the water would be in vain. Thus, a further study by the scientific methods of the quality of the water in Mason River is needed.

To sum up, the argument is not persuasive as it stands. Unless the arguer provides us more information about the water of Mason River or more detailed evidences about the recreational habit of the residents in region, we could hardly accept his/her conclusion.