Argument 117 2.28 小鸡要快跑哈

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT117 - The following is amemo from the business manager of Valu-Mart stores. "Over 70 percent ofthe respondents to a recent survey reported that they are required to take morework home with them from the workplace than they were in the past. SinceValu-Mart has not seen impressive sales in its office-supply departments in thepast, we should take advantage of this work-at-home trend by increasing at allValu-Mart stores the stock of home office machines such as printers, small copymachines, paper shredders, and fax machines. We will also increase stock ofoffice supplies such as paper, pens, and staplers. With these changes, ouroffice-supply departments will become the most profitable component of ourstores."


The argument concludes that Valu-Mart(VM)should increase the stock of office-supply in order to make more profits thanin the past. To support the conclusion, the author presents a survey that thereare more people who take work home now and evidence that VM'sale had notimpressive improvement in the past. However, the evidence and the survey reliedon by the argument are unconvincing and dubious in some critical aspects.

First of all, the argument unfairly assumesthat the people who take work home need the home office machines. It is totallypossible that the people working home do not need any home office machine but aset of computer. Or perhaps, the office supplies such paper, pens and stalpersare able to be taken home from the company they work for. Thus, it is notnecessary for the working-home people to buy any office-supply. If the argumentcannot rule out this possibility or provide substantial evidence, we cannotaccept the conclusion that the work-at-home people are in need of supplies ofoffice.

Next point, the argument provides surveyevidence upon which it relies is too vague to informative for us. The argumentfails to present how to choose the respondent, what is their main work, andwhether they need office-supplies such as paper or pens. Maybe, it is therespondents who take work home that have been chosen in the survey. Thus, theauthor should declare the nature of the survey and the method of choosing therespondents. Lacking more specific information about the survey of percentageof worker who take work home, it is impossible to access the acceptability ofthe survey's result or to make an informed recommendation.

Last but not least, even though the numberof people who take work home has been greatly increased, it is, nevertheless,unreasonable for the argument to be certain that the working-home people willbuy the supplies in VM. Therefore, the department of VM is not bound to becomethe most profitable component. And, VM should take adequate measures to improvethe sale of the office-supplies department.

To sum up, the argument is indeed logicalunsound with the existing evidence and the survey about the people who takework home. To better assess it, I need to know: (1) what are the respondentsneed at home to work; (2) whether the work-at-home phenomenon have therelationship of cause and effect with VM. To strongly strengthen it, the authorshould present clear evidence about the reliability of the survey to supportits assumption.

[ 本帖最后由 longxu 于 2007-3-3 18:20 编辑 ]