Argument153 第二十六次作业，谢谢拍~~

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题目
Argument153 The following is from an editorial in the Midvale Observer, a local newspaper.

"Ever since the 1950's, when television sets began to appear in the average home, the rate of crimes committed by teenagers in the country of Alta has steadily increased. This increase in teenage crime parallels the increase in violence shown on television. According to several national studies, even very young children who watch a great number of television shows featuring violent scenes display more violent behavior within their home environment than do children who do not watch violent shows. Furthermore, in a survey conducted by the Observer, over 90 percent of the respondents were parents who indicated that prime-time television—programs that are shown between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.—should show less violence. Therefore, in order to lower the rate of teenage crime in Alta, television viewers should demand that television programmers reduce the amount of violence shown during prime time."

翻译：
20世纪50年代电视开始出现在平常家庭以来，Alta的青少年犯罪发生率也在稳步增加。这种青少年犯罪的增加和电视中暴力节目的增加相对应。根据几次全国调查，那些看了大量含有暴力镜头的节目的很小的儿童比那些不看暴力节目的儿童在家庭环境中表现出更多的暴力行为。而且，在一次由Observer所举行的调查中，超过90％的回应者是那些指出黄金时段的电视节目（晚上7点－9点的节目）应该少播放暴力的家长。因此，为降低Alta青少年犯罪率，电视观众应该要求电视节目制作者减少黄金时段暴力镜头的播出数量。

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提纲
（1）错误的建立了暴力节目和青少年犯罪的关系。这可能是Alta的偶然情况，别的地区不一定这样，因此无法证明这种关系。而且有可能Alta有战争、生活贫困、青少年很少接受教育，所以青少年犯罪高。
（2）第一个调查缺乏说服力，儿童的暴力行为有可能是受父母的影响。
（3）第二个调查缺少足够信息。
（4）即使电视暴力节目真的与青少年犯罪增多有关，减少黄金时段的暴力镜头不一定起作用，因为他们可以在其他时段或者其他方式看到。

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字数：440 words
时间：32分钟
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正文
In this argument, the arguer suggests to reduce the amount of violence shown between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. in order to lower the rate of teenage crime in Alta. He supports his suggestion by the phenomena of synchronous increase of the rate of teenage crime and the violence shown on television and two surveys. At first glance, his suggestion seems logically, but after careful examination, we can find out several flaws as following.

First of all, the arguer fails to establish the causality between the rate of teenage crime and the violence. It is possible that the phenomena that the teenage crimes increase along with the increase of violence shown on television is only a coincidence and there is no such phenomena in other areas. It is also possible that since the 1950's, there are continuous wars in Alta, then people's living condition is very poor and teenagers do not have opportunities to enter schools and accept educations. As a result, the rate of crimes is certainly ascended.

Secondly, the first survey the arguer depends on does not have persuasion. The arguer does not show how the national studies were made, so the conclusion that even very young children who watch a great deal of violent scenes display more violent behavior than other children is open to doubt. As is known to everyone, parents have great influence on children, so it is likely that the violent behavior displayed by young children is studied from their parents.

Thirdly, the second survey the arguer cites lacks of enough information to be strong evidence. We cannot help to doubt when and where the survey was conducted, how many people took the survey, how many people responded, and can the respondents represent all the people's opinion. Unless the above questions are answered, the survey's result is untenable.

Last but not the least, granted that the violent scenes displayed in television do have relation with the rate of teenage crime, it is not certainly useful to adopt the method that reduce the amount of violence shown during prime time. Although the amount of violence shown between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. is decreased, the children still can get to violence scenes by other ways, such as pictures, books, VCD and the like. Consequently, whether the method can work well is suspicious.

To sum up, the arguer is too cursory to make the suggestion. To make it more convincing, he has to take the facets discussed above into account, that is, to make sure the relation of violence television programs and teenage crime, and to prove the method of reducing television programs is really beneficial.